


Black Tar Tambourine

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rating may go up, Rebel AU, and probably some smut, four small town kids become the perfect crime team for a good cause, or you could call it Criminal AU, some smut will occur for sure actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is breaking the law a crime if your intentions are pure? </p><p>Standing in a warehouse full of stolen cars, they're about to find out. After all, the law doesn't seem so important when a life hangs in the balance.</p><p>An engineer, a biochemist, a police chief's daughter, and a well-practiced criminal; the perfect combination to get the job done and not get caught (or at least they hope so).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. white line, motorcade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amazingjemma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingjemma/gifts).



> My darling friend amazingjemma and I have been kicking this idea around for ages now. Once she made a killer edit and fan mix for it, I knew there was no stopping this plot train. For give me, readers, for I have sinned: I've started yet another multi chapter fic. 
> 
> I know this one probably won't be for everyone cause there'll be a lot of moral grey area stuff going on, so no offense taken if you're not feeling it, I promise! 
> 
> This one is a particularly interesting challenge because I think it's gonna be fairly challenging to keep everyone in character in this AU. Bear with me, though...I think I can make it happen!

Bobbi leans back in the well-worn seats of Hunter’s 1967 Mustang. He’s not her usual type—for starters, he’s shorter than her—but there’s something about the accent and the messy clothes that seems to be working for her. The fact that her police chief step-father would absolutely _hate_ him just maximizes the attraction.

 

His hand reaches for the shifter, throwing it into fourth gear as he slams the pedal down. The car shoots forward and she lets out a little scream, causing him to chuckle and rest his palm on her thigh. He gives her leg a little squeeze and she grins widely at him.

 

“This thing is fast!” she practically shouts over the roar of the engine.

 

“That’s the idea, love!” he yells back with a wicked smirk. It makes her heart race and she decides that she might just reconsider her three-date-rule just this once.

 

“Where are we going?” she asks. He opens his mouth to answer her but gets cut off by the sound of a siren.

 

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath. Hunter looks at her with some regret in his eyes. “I had a lot of fun tonight. Just want you to know that.”

 

Bobbi’s brow furrows in confusion. “What’s going on?”

 

Red and blue lights illuminate his profile. “You might want to hang on tight there, sweetheart.”

 

Before she can question him again, the car accelerates even faster. She glances at the speedometer and watches with wide eyes as the red needle rockets past 100 miles per hour. Her hand slaps against the door and she leans back against her seat as hard as she can.

 

With a quick twist of the wheel, they go flying off of the road and into a nearby field. The back of the car loses traction, swinging off toward the side in a fishtail. Bobbi gasps and turns to look out of the back window.

 

“What the hell are you doing?!” she shouts. The cop car behind them struggles to keep pace.

 

“Evading the law,” he grins with a little wink. “This car may or may not belong to someone else.”

 

Bobbi’s jaw drops open. “You stole this car?”

 

“I prefer the term borrowed indefinitely, but I suppose, _technically_ , the car is stolen.”

 

Bobbi snorts humorlessly. “So I’m aiding and abetting a criminal? You do know what my major is, don’t you?”

 

“Criminal justice,” Hunter smirks. “Yes, I do remember you telling me that over milkshakes.”

 

Bobbi crosses her arms as her ire grows. “My step-father is the chief of police, Hunter.”

 

He jerks the wheel again, spinning the car halfway around so that it faces the other direction. The Mustang falters for a second as he jumps back onto the highway going the opposite direction as they had been. Bobbi crinkles her nose against the overwhelming scent of burning rubber even as her heart pounds against her ribs.

 

“I’m aware of that,” he continues. “But for some reason, your friend Jemma thought we’d get along anyway.”

 

Bobbi bites her lip. Jemma hadn’t been off-base when she set them up tonight. They _did_ get along, and while her mother and step-dad might have pressured her into a career as a detective, Bobbi doesn’t have the same cut-and-dry principles as the people who raised her. Over the years of her education, she’s learned that there’s entirely too much grey-area in the world, especially when it comes to systems of power. The law is just one of those systems, man-made and imperfect. Bobbi would never admit that to her step-dad, though.

 

“She wasn’t wrong,” Bobbi admits. She takes a deep breath and looks at the side-mirror. Two more cop cars have joined their original pursuer. “Where are we going?”

 

“I’ve got something of a safehouse,” Hunter shrugs. “It’s through the fields that way.”

 

He points out of her window and Bobbi nods decisively. “How comfortable are you with your E-brake?”

 

Hunter’s eyebrow quirks up and he glances over at her. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s not much I’m not comfortable with.”

 

“Other than cops,” Bobbi points out with a little smile. He throws his head back with a bark of laughter.

 

“Right, other than them.”

 

“When I say ‘go’, punch it and then pull the E-brake,” Bobbi instructs him.

 

“No offense, princess, but I’m a bit of an expert in this. Can’t say I really need any tips and tricks.”

 

Bobbi puts her hands up with a little shrug. “Fine. I just happen to know that the cars behind us can’t maneuver quickly enough to catch us if we drift into the field. It’ll give us almost a minute head-start. But what does the princess know, right?”

 

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Fine. It’s not a bad idea.”

 

She smiles in satisfaction and leans forward in her seat. “Alright, on my mark then.”

 

He rolls his eyes but nods.

 

“GO!”

 

He puts the pedal down as far as it will go before turning the wheel and yanking on the emergency brake. The car slides with a loud shriek, drifting horizontally into the field. He fights to maintain control of the Mustang and Bobbi can’t help but shriek as the car evens out. He punches it once again, shooting off over the bumpy terrain of the field. He clicks off his headlights and hopes that the car will disappear into the darkness. The police cruisers pursuing them come to a screeching halt on the highway behind them and Bobbi lets out a wild laugh.

  
“Woo!” she whoops, throwing her arms up and smacking the roof of the car. Hunter laughs loudly.

 

“They weren’t wrong,” Hunter marvels aloud. Bobbi tilts her head to the side.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re not what I expected,” Hunter grins.

 

“And what does that mean?” Bobbi snaps.

 

“Police chief’s daughter, grew up on the right side of the tracks, studying to go into intelligence—just didn’t exactly think you’d be on board with criminal activities,” Hunter explains. Bobbi licks her lips.

 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really see our date veering into grand theft auto but what can you do?”   


“So it was a date, then,” Hunter confirms. Bobbi scoffs.

 

“Obviously it was a date. Technically, it still _is_ a date.”

 

“Only if you want it to be,” Hunter tells her, softer than she’s heard him speak all night.

 

Bobbi bites on her bottom lip and stares at the dark field out of her window flying past her. He hadn’t exactly been wrong about her. She’d grown up as an only child in a six bedroom mansion in the center of town. Chief of police for the tiny Midwestern county, Robert Gonzales was a strict hand but gave her just about anything she wanted. She’d wanted for nothing and lived warm and sheltered in her little bubble of a life.

 

Then she’d gone to college and, as a senior, she’s been feeling the pull of the draw of the city. Despite Robert’s desire to have her join the force right out of college as a detective, she’s always dreamed of something different. The lights of Los Angeles or New York or even the sunny beaches of Miami have pulled at her like a moth to a flame and she can’t help the twinge she feels in her gut whenever she imagines settling down in their small town just outside of the university she attends.

 

“I do,” Bobbi finally says, risking a glance at Hunter’s profile. “Want it to be a date, still.”

 

Hunter takes his eyes off of the field in front of him long enough to meet her gaze. “Good.”

 

He glances through the windshield one last time just as the red and blue lights flood the car once again.

 

“Fuck it,” he grunts, propping his knee up to support the steering wheel. He reaches over, grabs Bobbi by the neck, and roughly presses his chapped lips against her glossed ones. She gasps into his mouth and before she can recover, he’s pulled himself away from her and grabbed the wheel in his hands once again.

 

Her chest heaves with heavy breaths. Hunter grins to himself and murmurs something under his breath that she can’t quite catch. He makes a sharp left turn toward a patch of trees and before she knows it, the lights are gone. He pulls out his cell phone and presses a few buttons, lifting the device to his ear.

 

“Hey mate. I’ve got company but I’ll be there in a couple minutes. Open the doors, would ya?”

 

“Who was that?” Bobbi asks when he hangs up.

 

“My friend,” Hunter says evasively. “Believe it or not, I think you already know him.”

 

Bobbi can just make out a slight figure pushing open a warehouse door as they approach. The man jogs out of the way as the mustang flies into the building, screeching to a stop inches away from the bumper of the car in front of it. Bobbi’s neck jerks with the force and she winces, rubbing at the back of it. Hunter leans forward, brushing the hair off of her back and dropping a slow kiss to nape of her neck. She shivers, intending to tell him off but promptly forgetting to as he pulls away.

 

“Come on, then,” Hunter sighs, pushing open the door.

 

Bobbi opens her door, sliding out of the Mustang and looking around the dark warehouse curiously. It seems to be full of cars and motorcycles. Her legs are numb with nerves and lights flicker on quite suddenly.

 

“Hi Bobbi,” a familiar British accent rings out. She whips around and stares, positively bewildered, at her roommate.

 

“Jemma? What the hell?”

 

Jemma’s old lab partner-turned-university-dropout, Leo Fitz, stands beside her with his hands shoved into the front pocket of his jeans.

 

“Fitz?”

 

“Hey,” he mumbles, shifting awkwardly.

 

“What the hell is going on here?” Bobbi demands, whirling on Hunter. “What did you do to Jemma?”

 

Hunter snorts and holds up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t do anything to her. Look, this was all her idea.”

 

Bobbi’s eyes narrow. “What was? The police chase?”

 

“Your date and the—the way that it ended,” Jemma interrupts, gesturing between Hunter and Bobbi. Bobbi’s face heats up in mortification and Hunter looks like he’s going to say something but Jemma continues to speak. “I called the cops on Hunter, reported the car stolen. I needed to know you would be on board with this.”

 

“On board with what?” Bobbi says through gritted teeth.

 

Fitz scratches behind his ear and finally looks up at her. “My mum is sick. It’s bad. She got fired from her job, she’s got no insurance, and we’re going to lose the house—“

 

“That’s why you dropped out,” Bobbi observes dully. “I knew there was more to the story.”

 

Fitz nods, clearing his throat. “So uh—so Hunter had this idea—“

 

“We’ve been mates since grade school,” Hunter explains to her. “Growing up as the only two kids in the Midwest with goofy accents and shite parents forms a bond, I guess.”

 

Fitz smiles slightly. “Yeah, and I went away to school but Hunter stayed here.”

 

“I don’t exactly make my living honestly,” Hunter admits. “But Mrs. Fitz is really the best bird I know. She’s more my mum than, well, my own shitty mum. She doesn’t deserve this.”

 

“What does this have to do with me?” Bobbi asks, eyes shooting between the three people in front of her.

 

“Hunter had the idea to—be a little dishonest,” Jemma says carefully. Bobbi barks out a laugh.

 

“Jemma, you’re about the worst liar I’ve ever met. Obviously whatever’s going on here is more than a little dishonest.”

 

“Right, exactly, I’m a horrible liar but I’m a bit of scientific genius,” Jemma rushes out. “With my skills, Fitz’s gadgets, Hunter’s—skillset, and your experience and knowledge of law enforcement, we could make quite the team.”

 

“To commit crimes,” Bobbi says slowly. “You want to form some kind of—criminal syndicate?”

 

Fitz looks at her nervously. “I wouldn’t call it that. We just need to—commit a _few_ crimes. Just get enough money to help my mum.”

 

“And send Fitz back to school,” Jemma cuts in, glaring at him. He huffs and rolls his eyes.

 

“We’re working on that one,” he grumbles.

 

Bobbi swallows hard, looking around at all of them with a calculating expression. Her eyes settle on Jemma and she sighs.

 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but—I’m considering it.”

 

Her perky British friend squeaks and jumps up, rushing forward to hug her quickly.

 

“Thank you, Bobbi.”

 

Bobbi turns to Hunter, hands settling on her hips. “So are you always the bait?”

 

He smirks. “Sometimes.”

 

He moves toward her and Jemma quickly busies herself with chattering at Fitz. Hunter leans forward and whispers in Bobbi’s ear.

 

“I quite like you, Barbara.”

 

She shoves him backward. “Rule number one: never call me Barbara.”

 

“Noted,” he shrugs. “So, on the scale of horrible first dates…”

 

“Other than this one being fake?” Bobbi scowls. “It wouldn’t actually make my list of bad dates.”

 

“Seriously?” he gapes, voice entirely too hopeful. “Because, just so you know, I was quite keen on taking you out even if you hadn’t agreed to all of this.”

 

She tilts her head to the side. “Well, you owe me one hell of a second date then, Hunter.”

 

He grins. “Done and done, love.”

 

She nods briskly. “Good. Now, Jemma. A word?”

 

Her roommate tucks her hair behind her ears in a tell-tale sign of nervousness and shuffles forward. “Yes. Sure. And I’ll drive us home after this, obviously, I just—“

 

Bobbi throws an arm over her shoulders. “Relax, English. Where can we get some privacy in this place?”

 

Jemma jerks her head toward another old car and they climb inside.

 

“Jemma, what the hell are you doing?” Bobbi asks as soon as they’ve shut themselves off.

 

Jemma sighs, her forehead leaning forward to land on the steering wheel. “Bobbi, he’s brilliant. He’s so close to being done with school and he deserves to finish, more than anyone else I know.”

 

“Of course he does. I know Fitz is amazing, and I know how much he means to you, but Jemma we’re talking _crime_ here.”

 

“But it’s—it’s crime for the right reason, isn’t it?” Jemma asks, fiddling with the hem of her top. “Like Robin Hood.”

 

Bobbi groans, rolling her head back. So much for a carefree date with a local British bad boy.

 

“What are they even planning on doing?” Bobbi plows forward. “Do they even know?”

 

“Hunter has been selling cars to a chop shop for years,” Jemma explains quietly. “He’s made good money that way, but he—well, he tends to get caught. And that’s where the rest of us come in.”

 

“So stealing cars,” Bobbi says slowly. “Just—just stealing cars.”

 

“Stealing cars,” Jemma confirms. Her voice wavers at the end and Bobbi shoots her a look that spurns her to continue. “Well, stealing cars and—maybe some breaking and entering.”

 

“Breaking and entering?”

 

“Stealing,” Jemma admits weakly. “Look, Bobbi, I know that this is absolutely bloody mental, and if there was any other way around this you know I would have found it.”

 

Bobbi shuts her eyes, considering this entire proposal over again. “This is really the best thing you and Fitz could come up with?”

 

Jemma nods rapidly, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out a sheet of paper. Bobbi unfolds it and sees that it’s a medical bill for Fitz’s mom.

 

“Holy shit,” Bobbi whistles. “A hundred thousand dollars? For what?”

 

“For one surgery,” Jemma mumbles. “That was just the first one, and it didn’t include any of the chemo or any other surgeries she’ll need. Now that the high school pink slipped her, she’s pretty much totally stuffed. And so is Fitz.”

 

Bobbi sighs and hands the sheet back to her. She yanks open the door to the car and marches over to Fitz and Hunter. Fitz immediately straightens up, but Hunter remains hunched over on the hood of the car.

 

“Alright, I really am in. Jemma explained some of what’s going on here, but we need to make some boundaries.”

 

Hunter grins wolfishly and absentmindedly flicks a lighter on and off in one hand. “Boundaries? You’re _really_ not like the other girls I go out with.”

 

Bobbi huffs and glares at him. “I’m serious. We plan everything together, okay? Everyone is in on every job.”

 

“Job?” Fitz asks, eyes wide. “You’ve really stepped right into this criminal thing.”

 

Bobbi continues on as if he hasn’t spoken. “We do our best to make sure that the people we’re taking from have more than enough to cover what we take. Absolutely no violence unless one of us is in serious danger. Every dime we get goes to Fitz’s mom. We don’t use any of it for ourselves.”

 

Hunter immediately protests. “Oi, that’s not going to work for me, love. In case Tiny over here didn’t fill you in already, this is how I make my living.”

 

“Fine,” Bobbi concedes after an exasperated moment of consideration. “But you don’t keep more than you need, alright?”

 

Hunter nods. “Like I said, anything for Mrs. Fitz.”

 

Fitz takes a shaking breath. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

 

His eyes immediately look for Jemma and she gives him a reassuring little smile.

 

“Fitz, this is what we have to do. We’ve gone through every other option,” Jemma reminds him. The two seem to hold a silent conversation for a moment and Bobbi is left wondering, once again, if the two of them have a psychic connection of some kind.

 

“Hey, why don’t I drive Bobbi home?” Hunter suggests. She makes a noise of disbelief and he talks over her. “In a different car than that one, obviously.”

 

Jemma looks to Bobbi for approval and she crinkles her face in amused distaste.

 

“Fine,” Bobbi concedes, scanning the warehouse. “That one.”

 

She points to a nondescript, clunky Honda parked off to the side and Hunter makes a whining noise.

 

“That one? Really?”

 

Bobbi grins cheekily. “You bet your ass I want you to drive that one. Nice and slow. Come on, Speed Racer.”

 

She walks briskly to the car and he follows, sliding into the driver’s seat.

 

“You’re really taking this whole thing in stride,” he says casually as he starts the car with the keys in the drink holder. Bobbi laughs.

 

“Absolutely not,” she tells him. “Trust me, the neurotic freak out is coming. Don’t you worry about that.”

 

“Ah, good. I was afraid I’d miss it,” he says wryly. They pull out of the warehouse and leave Fitz and Jemma to themselves.

 

***

 

They watch the taillights of the Honda disappear into the darkness of the field, a comfortable silence enveloping the warehouse. Just as Fitz has come to expect since they were paired up in their first-ever chemistry lab, Jemma speaks first.

 

“It’s going to be fine,” Jemma tells him softly. Her hand reaches out to link with his. “I promise. We’re going to get your mum what she needs and then it’ll be done and over with, okay?”

 

His leg bounces nervously and he squeezes her hand anxiously. “Sure. Right. I just—it should just be me and Hunter.”

 

Jemma scoffs and drops his hand. He immediately regrets whatever it is he said to make her let go of him. “Why’s that? Because Bobbi and I are women?”

 

“No!” Fitz rushes to correct. “Not at all. But Bobbi’s dad is a cop, and you’re not even a U.S. citizen. If we get caught, you could get deported.”

 

Jemma considers this. “You’re right. I could. But we’re not going to get caught. That’s why we’ve put together the perfect team. You’ll build the gadgets so we’ll hardly even need to _use_ our hands at all. I’ll design specialized fabrics and gloves so we leave no biological traces behind. Bobbi knows the police department inside and out, so she knows how to outwit them. She’s tough as nails. And Hunter has been doing this for _years.”_

“So what, we’re all the brains and Hunter’s the brawn? We just let him take the fall if anything goes wrong?” Fitz practically growls. She blinks at the strength of his reaction. “I won’t let that happen. He’s like a brother to me.”

 

“Nobody said that,” Jemma tries to soothe. “Like I said, nobody is getting caught.”

 

Fitz snorts, running his hands over his hair. “That’s a good sentiment, Jemma, but it’s not realistic, alright? So Bobbi made her rules and now I’m making mine. If anyone goes down for any of this, it’s got to be me.”

 

“Fitz…”

 

“Jemma,” he interrupts, holding a hand up to silence her. “Please. Or I’m not doing any of it, and I’m not letting anyone else either.”

 

The narrowing of her eyes tells him that she wants to shout him down about the fact that he doesn’t get to _let her_ do anything, but she takes in a sharp breath through her nose instead.

 

“Your dad—“

 

“Is a criminal,” Fitz finishes, voice rising in volume. His hands fly up to link behind his head and he paces. “And now I’m going to be one too and it’s not fair to drag you all down with me.”

 

“The whole point of this is to help you and your mum,” Jemma says. “If it ends with you in jail then it’s for nothing.”

 

Fitz shrugs, tears pricking at the bag of his eyes. “If it ends with my mum alive than it’s all worth it. She’s all I’ve got, y’know.”

 

Jemma shakes her head, swallowing down tears of her own. She rushes for him and throws her arms around his shoulders. His hands drop from behind his head to hold onto her.

 

“That’s not true. She’s not _all_ you have,” Jemma sighs into his neck. “You’re my best friend in the world.”

 

Fitz clears his throat and attempts to lighten the mood. “Don’t tell Bobbi that. She’ll beat me up.”

 

Jemma laughs tightly and squeezes him. “Can’t have that, can we?”

 

She pulls back to stare at him earnestly. “Fitz, you know that—you know what you mean to me.”

 

He nods slightly and leans forward before wrenching himself back again. There’s finally a small smile on his face and it speeds up her pulse. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

 

“And I know—I know that you want to wait,” Jemma says, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “Until everything is settled with your mum. I completely understand that but I’m still your best friend. I’m still here for you, no matter what. If you _really_ don’t want to do this, then we won’t.”

 

Fitz sighs heavily and shakes his head. “No. I—well, I don’t _want_ to do it but I think it’s—I think it’s the only option we’ve got. So we will, but like I said—if anyone goes down for this, it’s me.”

 

Jemma watches his expression carefully before reaching up to place a lingering kiss on his cheekbone.

 

“You darling, stupid man,” she sighs affectionately. She backs away, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the keys to her old Mini Cooper. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

 

“’Course you will,” he grins. “Y’come and bother me nearly every day.”

 

“Yes well I can’t do it in the lab anymore, can I?” she retorts. She sticks her tongue out at him and accidently bumps into the back of her car. She giggles when he barks out a laugh and she waves goodbye over her shoulder.

 

He watches her taillights disappear before he picks up a hex-head screwdriver and flicking his radio on, making sure to keep the volume down. He crouches down in front of the Mustang Hunter had driven for his date with Bobbi and busies himself with removing the license plates. He narrows his eyes as he searches his tool bench, smiling to himself as he picks up the mechanical sander.

 

“Sorry, baby girl,” he says to the car. “We’ve got to have a makeover, now that Hunter’s defiled you.”

 

By the time he’s done removing and melting down the license plates, replacing them with decoys, and giving the Mustang a new coat of green paint quite different from its original black, it’s nearly four in the morning. He wipes his paint-covered hands on his jeans and walks out into the balmy Midwestern summer air.

 

He locks up the doors of the warehouse and swings a leg over his dad’s old motorbike. Fitz revs the engine, shooting off across the field back into town to his sick mother, trying his best not to feel like he’s just ruined the lives of all of his closest friends.


	2. we are empty venom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Jemma go on their first practice run and realize that they may not be entirely prepared for what's required of them. Luckily they have the skills to find a way around it; they'll just need some help breaking into the University lab. Enter Skye, Fitz's computer hacker friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, it's still in the ramp-up so I hope this isn't too boring! I'm trying to kind of maintain the FitzSimmons moral center thing--and I also wanted to kind of show how Hunter became a criminal in this verse to begin with. He and Fitz have been friends for so long and I can't imagine that Fitz would have been fine with hanging around some good-for-nothing criminal. 
> 
> So this is kind of a window into that, and just a little more introduction to where the plot is going. Like I said, I hope it's not too boring :)

“Can we really do this?” Fitz asks her breathlessly. 

 

She swallows and tries her best to look more confident than she feels. “It’s just a practice run,” she reminds him. “We’re just stealing Hunter’s car.” 

 

“Right. Just stealing a car. Hunter’s car,” Fitz mumbles, mostly to himself. He pulls a little gadget out of his pocket and a small smile begins to form on his face. “Plus, if this thing works as I planned–” 

 

“Which I’m sure it will,” Jemma adds. “Given that I helped with the prototype.” 

 

He gives her a look and continues. “We’re about to revolutionize grand theft auto.” 

 

“You’ve been waiting all night to say that, haven’t you?” she teases. She gives his free hand a little squeeze. “Alright, let’s get this over with, shall we?” 

 

Fitz pulls a beanie down over his distinctive curls, watching Jemma throw the hood of his sweatshirt over her head. He shuts his eyes for a moment, inhaling slowly and then exhaling forcefully out through his mouth. Jemma, for her part, hops up and down nervously in her sneakers.

 

They approach Hunter’s car as casually as they can, Jemma leaning against the car parked beside it and surveying the area for anyone who might catch them in the act. If all goes as planned, the device in Fitz’s pocket will do most of the work for them. Fitz attaches the round silver gadget to the lock on the door of the car, clicking a button on the bottom of it. A quiet whirring noise breaks the silence and the car unlocks with a click. He hits the button to unlock the passenger door and Jemma slips inside.

 

“Now to get it going,” Fitz says with a smirk. She nearly laughs at his sudden turn in confidence but decides not to knock him down a peg (at least not yet). She reaches into the front pocket of the borrowed hoodie wrapped around her, pulling out a flat circular metal disk, ironically repurposed from a hub cap. Fitz places it over the ignition and types in a series of codes on his mobile. The old Civic that Hunter drove Bobbi home in the week before putters to life and Fitz lets out a victorious whoop.

 

“You did it, Fitz!” Jemma cheers. He puts the car in drives and heads out toward their meeting spot with Hunter and Bobbi. That’s when he hears the distinct clink of pellets hitting the back window of the car.

 

Jemma whips around and her jaw drops. “It’s Hunter! He’s shooting at us!”

 

Fitz groans. “I knew he’d do something like this.”

 

Hunter rides up beside them on a motorcycle, the only other vehicle on the empty road. He shoots a few BB pellets at Fitz’s window and grins at them beneath his helmet. Bobbi clings to the back of him, blonde hair shoved beneath a helmet that makes her look rather like a Stormtrooper, in Jemma’s opinion. Hunter speeds ahead of them, lifting the front of his bike into a wheelie and Fitz grumbles under his breath.

 

“Bloody show-off.”

 

Jemma pats his leg sympathetically. “Sorry, Fitz. I didn’t expect there to be weapons involved.”

 

“I think that was the point of this practice round,” Fitz sighs. “He’s been trying tp prove to me that I’m going to have to get my hands dirty if we do this.”

 

“But why?” Jemma practically demands. “You’re the gadget guy. I’m the one who’ll get rid of the evidence, Bobbi is there for strategy—we won’t even be _stealing_ the cars.”

 

“According to Hunter, this kind of thing may not be avoidable,” he explains to her a bit tersely. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

 

Jemma worries her lip between her teeth, leaning her head against the car window. “Fitz, what if we have to hurt someone?”

 

He takes a long moment to answer, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “There’s no guarantee that it won’t come to that. If someone catches us in the act, and they get mad—“

 

“But that’s self-defense!” Jemma exclaims, rather pleased with her logic. “So it wouldn’t be so bad then.”

 

“Self-defense because we’re committing a crime already,” Fitz reminds her gently. “Jemma, you’re not exactly the type who can do that.”

 

Jemma turns to glare at him. “Oh? As if you are?”

 

“I know I’m not,” Fitz admits. “Which is why I’m trying to offer you an out right now.”

 

“Again,” Jemma corrects. “You’re offering me an out _again._ And I’ve already told you, _Leo,_ I’m not backing out of this.”

 

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps on instinct. She raises a challenging brow at him and he sighs. “Can we just promise each other something?”

 

Jemma’s face turns serious. “What is it?”

 

“We need to promise that we’re not going to lose ourselves in this,” he says, eyes glancing away from the road just long enough to make eye contact with her.

 

“I promise. Neither of us will lose who we really are,” she assures him softly. “If you get out of control, I’ll reel you back in.”

 

“And if you do, I’ll get you back in line,” Fitz smiles. Jemma rolls her eyes with a light laugh.

 

“You say that as though I would ever step out of line,” she grins.

 

He pegs her with a sardonic stare. “You just helped me steal a car, Simmons.”

 

“It’s just _Hunter’s_ car,” she giggles. “The one he likes the least, no less.”

 

“Well soon it won’t be Hunter’s car,” he reminds her solemnly. She grows serious once again.

 

“I have another thing to add, if that’s alright.”

 

“Course it is,” he says, turning his hand over on the center console. She places her hand in his palm and he instantly feels a wave of calm rush over him despite the rapid change of mood.

 

“Promise me that at least we’ll still have each other,” Jemma says quietly.

 

He snorts. “As if you need a promise for that one. Y’know how I hate change.”

 

Jemma glares at him teasingly. “I don’t hear a promise in there.”

 

“I promise,” he says earnestly, pulling off of the main road toward Hunter’s worse-for-wear house. He throws the car in park and glances over at her. “There’s going to be a moment where we regret this. I can feel it.”

 

“I’ll never regret helping you and helping your mum,” Jemma retorts rather fiercely. “That’s one promise I can certainly make, no matter what happens from here. And when this is all over, we can finally move forward. You and me.”

 

His weak smile grows a bit stronger, but she still sees a doubt in his eyes that she doesn’t like. She opens her mouth to try to make him understand, finally, what she’s trying to say. She’s interrupted by a loud knock on the window, startling her. Bobbi stands with the helmet tucked in the crook of her arm and pulls the door open.

 

“We would have killed you,” Bobbi says simply when Jemma steps out into the warm air. Jemma rolls her eyes.

 

“I highly doubt someone would shoot and kill us over their car.”

 

“You’d be surprised,” Bobbi says with a shrug. “Honestly, you’ve gotta be ready for this kind of thing.”

 

“And when did you become such a criminal mastermind?” Jemma questions, crossing her arms defensively.

 

Bobbi raises her eyebrows. “I’ve spent the last four years learning how people commit crimes and how they get caught. Any police officer could go rogue and go on a serious crime spree and probably never get caught.”

 

“You’re not a police officer.”

 

“Might as well be,” she shrugs. “Jemma, I just don’t want you to be in over your head, okay? I’m not saying that people are going to shoot at you…”

 

“But you’re not saying that they _won’t_ either,” Jemma finishes with a sigh. “I get it.”

 

The thought of firing a _gun,_ shooting at a _human being,_ rolls her stomach more than the thought of being shot at herself. She could never live with herself if she seriously injured, or God forbid, actually _killed_ someone.

 

One glance at Fitz’s drawn and anxious face as he rants at Hunter gives her an idea.

 

“Non-lethal,” Jemma whispers.

 

Bobbi quirks a brow. “Hm?”

 

“A non-lethal weapon!” Jemma exclaims, forgetting to control the volume of her voice. Fitz and Hunter immediately look over and make their way toward the girls.

 

“What’re you on about?” Hunter asks a bit defensively. “For the record, a BB gun _isn’t_ lethal.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Not a BB gun. We could hardly protect ourselves with that, if someone attacked us to defend their property. Obviously the best thing to do would be to retreat, but if we don’t have the option, we need a way to protect ourselves.”

 

Hunter snorts and gestures at himself. “You’re lookin’ at it, love.”

 

Bobbi crosses her arms. “Well that might be too little too late.”

 

“I’ll remind you that we’re practically the same height,” Hunter shoots back. He glances down at her feet. “And I don’t wear bloody heels all the time.”

 

“These are flats!” Bobbi yelps. Jemma and Fitz exchange a glance. In the weeks since Bobbi and Hunter’s pseudo-date, the two had been seeing a _lot_ of each other. While they seemed to have genuine chemistry and were, quite possibly, actually _fond_ of one another, they bickered as though they’d been married and divorced and married again.

 

“For those of us who aren’t Scrappy Doo,” Jemma cuts in, “we should have a non-lethal weapon that we can use to protect ourselves that won’t seriously injure anyone.”

 

This catches Bobbi’s attention. “Well there’s a lot of options for that. Stun gun, pepper spray, taser—“

 

Fitz’s eyes widen in both respect and fear of the tall blonde standing across from him. “I’m sure Jemma’s considered those options.”

 

“Of course I have,” Jemma says briskly. “Tasers and stun guns can still lead to death. Pepper spray isn’t always effective depending on what kind of altercation you’re in.”

 

“So you want something like a nonlethal gun,” Fitz jumps in. He leans against the Honda, one foot crossed over the other. “In theory it’s great, but aside from a BB gun…”

 

“Dendrotoxin!” Jemma practically shouts at him. His eyebrows fly upward.

 

“Like from our thesis project?”

 

“ _Exactly_ like from our thesis project,” she confirms. “If we could create a bullet that shoots a high-concentration dendotroxin, it would—“

 

“—create instant paralysis for a short period of time. Long enough to get away—“

 

“—but not enough to create permanent damage,” Jemma finishes excitedly. Fitz shakes his head at her enthusiasm.

 

“Before I dropped out we couldn’t get the dispersal mechanism to work.”

 

“So we’ll do it now,” Jemma says, as though it’s every day that she builds nonlethal weaponry.

 

“We don’t have any supplies,” Fitz huffs. Bobbi and Hunter simply watch and listen, hands lazily tangling together.

 

A slow, mischievous smile spreads over Jemma’s lips. Fitz eyes her wearily.

 

“Jemma, no…”

 

“Fitz,” she says slowly. He’s pretty sure that she knows _exactly_ what the look she’s giving him does below the belt. She takes a little step forward. “We just stole a car. I think we can break into a lab, don’t you?”

 

Fitz groans, head falling backward. “We’ve broken into the lab before, since you left your exam notes in there the _night_ before our Applied Physics midterm—“

 

“The reason we were there is irrelevant,” Jemma cuts off, cheeks pink as she remembers the _one time_ she had failed at preparation. “But Fitz, think about it. We won’t need to take much. The lab managers probably won’t even realize anything is gone.”

 

“Fine,” Fitz huffs. “We’ll go tonight. But under one condition.”

 

“What’s that?” Bobbi finally asks. Jemma and Fitz turn to look at her in tandem, looking surprised to still find her and Hunter standing there. “Like I said, we’re all in for every job.”

 

“This isn’t exactly a job,” Jemma clarifies. Bobbi shakes her head.

 

“Close enough for me. Hunter and I are coming.”

 

“I figured we would be,” Hunter mumbles to her. “Just not like _this.”_

She smacks him on the arm but Jemma doesn’t miss the amused and affectionate little quirk to her lips. Neither does Hunter, and he pecks her quickly on the cheek.

 

“So, Fitz, what’s your condition?”

 

“I’ve got this friend, Skye—“

 

Jemma’s eyes immediately snap to him. “Who?”

 

“Skye Coulson,” Fitz says, a bit irritability. “I think you’ve met her. She was in my Computer Engineering class. Comp Sci major, long brown hair, really pretty?”

 

Hunter grimaces as soon as the words leave Fitz’s mouth and Bobbi gives him a look that could kill. Jemma, on the other hand, grows quiet. Fitz doesn’t seem to notice what he’s said and continues on.

 

“She can hack just about anything. We’ll have her re-route the security cameras at the front of the EngSci building.”

 

“EngSci?” Hunter asks.

 

“Engineering and Sciences,” Bobbi explains. “It’s where these two take all of their classes, and where the labs are.”

 

“And where do you take your classes? The dungeons with the other hell beasts?” Hunter grins.

 

She shakes her head. “I take mine in the A & S building, thanks.”

 

“Arts and Sciences,” Jemma fills in. “But by that, they really mean the _soft_ sciences.”

 

Fitz holds up a hand. “We’re not starting you two girls off on your soft sciences versus hard sciences thing again.”

 

Jemma scoffs. “As if you don’t agree with me. Call your friend and tell her to cut the security feed at 10 p.m. I’ll see you at me and Bobbi’s.”

 

Jemma pulls her keys out of her pocket and then realizes that her car isn’t in the driveway; after all, they’re at Hunter’s house.

 

“I’ll take you to your car if you need to go,” Fitz says, looking a bit lost at her sudden change in mood. “But we should all meet at Skye’s first.”

 

Jemma bites down on her lip. “Hunter, can I use the bathroom?”

 

Now Hunter stiffens a bit uncomfortably. “Well, uh, see…”

 

“You should just wait until we get back to mine,” Fitz says quickly. Bobbi’s brow furrows.

 

“We can’t go back to your place for another hour, remember? Your mom asked us to give her some peace and quiet,” Bobbi says.

 

Hunter looks at Fitz heavily. “Fine, Jemma. Follow me.”

 

Bobbi moves to come too and her jerks away from her hand rather abruptly. “Just Jemma.”

 

“What—“

 

Fitz steps in an attempt to fix the situation. “I actually needed to talk to you. About, uh, high speed chase protocol.”

 

Bobbi doesn’t seem all that convinced—after all, talking to her often feels like talking to the world’s best lie detector test—but she humors him and shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She watches Hunter lead Jemma into the ramshackle house and then begins to tell Fitz all the ways that the county police department handles fleeing suspects.

 

***

“Be as quiet as you can,” Hunter whispers as he and Jemma step through the threshold of his house. It’s utterly tiny and falling apart; old-fashioned wall paper looks ready to fall off of the walls at any moment. The carpet beneath her feet was obviously some shade of light grey at some point, but the large stains covering it make the color nearly indistinguishable.

 

“First door right here,” he mumbles, looking rather embarrassed. Jemma isn’t really sure what to say. She wants to reassure him that she doesn’t care what his house looks like, and that she’s so thankful that Fitz has Hunter to look out for him now that he’s moved back home. She wants to tell him how much Fitz adores him and how much she’s grown to care for him as an extension of that. She wants to thank him for taking care of _their_ boy when she can’t.

 

But she also knows that all of this will just embarrass him, or he’ll think she’s being patronizing about his living conditions, so she slips into the bathroom with a silent little nod. It’s roughly the size of a coat closet, a toilet crammed so close to the sink that her knees practically touch the cabinets.

 

She doesn’t actually need to relieve herself; she’d just needed a moment alone after Fitz talking about Skye. She hasn’t met her before, but she’s heard of her from Fitz and most notably from her new lab partner, Lincoln Campbell. After Fitz had dropped out, she’d been in need of a new one. Lincoln, a pre-med student, didn’t have all that many friends in the course and they’d naturally paired up.

 

It had seemed cute when Lincoln was going on and on about how pretty and funny and adorable and brave this Skye Coulson was. Now, however, it does not feel cute at all, not now that she knows that Fitz seems to think so too. And since when did he have friends that they didn’t share?

 

She goes to splash some water in her face only to find the tap water an unsettling shade of brownish yellow. She flushes the toilet to make it seem as though she used the restroom and as soon as she steps back out of the door, she collides with an older, unkempt woman. A fifth of some kind of alcohol dangles from her fingertips.

 

“Who the hell are you?” the woman barks. It’s rather slurred, but Jemma understands it anyway. “You Lance’s new whore?”

 

“Mum,” Hunter cuts in sharply. “Go back to bed.”

 

“Y’can’t tell me what to do,” she hisses at him. “Just like your sack of shite father, you are.”

 

Jemma has no idea how to react. She presses herself as close to the wall as she can and hopes that Hunter defuses the situation on her own.

 

“She’s just a friend. She needed to use the loo,” Hunter explains through gritted teeth. “And now we’re leaving anyway.”

 

“Wait,” Hunter’s mum says, stumbling over to a messy table in what Jemma assumes is supposed to the the living room based on the small threadbare couch and television set. She rustles through the table, which looks more like a card table than anything else, and practically smacks Hunter in the face with a stack of papers.

 

Hunter hardly glances down at them and Jemma can see the back of his neck heating up red.

 

“Those are for the month,” his mum growls. She takes a sip of the bottle for so long that Jemma feels the need to remind her to breathe. She can feel her own stomach burn just watching the amount of alcohol she takes in at once.

 

“Whatever, Mum. It’ll be done,” Hunter says. “We’re leaving now.”

 

They’ve almost reached the door when the bottle comes flying at them, breaking just next to the door and about seven inches from Jemma’s head. Hunter whirls around and Jemma shrieks, hands to her chest from the shock of the close call.

 

Hunter’s mum walks up and shoves him.

 

“Jemma, get out,” Hunter says tightly.

 

“Hunter—“

 

“I told you to _get out.”_

She’s never heard the cheeky, flirtatious Brit be so serious before, so she follows his orders and tries her best not to start crying when she walks out and sees Fitz and Bobbi.

 

“Is everything okay?” Bobbi asks immediately. “Where’s Hunter? I heard yelling…”

 

There’s a reason why Hunter didn’t let Bobbi come into the house and Jemma isn’t about to be the reason why Bobbi finds out about it. Suddenly, so many things about Lance Hunter make more sense to her. Jemma smiles weekly.

 

“Oh he knocked over a vase, upset his mum. He said he’d meet us at the garage. We’ll all take the Honda, yeah?”

 

Her previous thoughts of jealousy feel utterly insignificant and petty now, but they still linger like a wound that just won’t stop bleeding. She climbs into the backseat, allowing Bobbi to have the front. Fitz looks at her, concern in his eyes, from the rear view mirror. She looks out of her window, forehead resting against it as she pointedly ignores his attempts to make contact with her.

 

It’s silly and it’s childish, but she’s never been under this kind of pressure before. After witnessing Hunter’s life behind closed doors and feeling the sting of the fact that Fitz apparently isn’t quite as faithful to his completely-unofficial-girlfriend-who-he-can-be-with-when-all-of-this-is-over, she’s exhausted and has no energy to deal with playing nice.

 

She’ll steal the lab equipment for the non-lethal weapons and put them together tomorrow. Then they’ll work from there.

 

***

 

A gorgeous brunette swings open the door and smiles widely at Fitz. “Leopold!”

 

Jemma flinches at the teasing way she says his first name; he’s never let her call him that, and she’d taken to using his first name only as a way to indicate her own annoyance with him. Fitz rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

 

“Skye, this is Jemma, Bobbi, and Hunter.”

 

Skye’s eyes light up when they fall on Jemma. “The infamous Jemma Simmons! It’s awesome to finally meet you. This one never shuts up about you.”

 

Fitz immediately focuses on a spot on the wall of Skye’s studio apartment. The place is a mess and the majority of it is covered in clothes and computer monitors. Bobbi and Hunter stay back toward the door, trying to avoid overcrowding in the small space.

 

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Jemma finally manages politely. “My lab partner is a friend of yours, I believe.”

 

Skye’s smile only grows larger. “Oh, Lincoln? He’s great. I met him through my biological mom, actually. Long story, but—anyway. You guys need my help with something?”

 

“It’s not strictly legal,” Fitz prefaces gingerly. Skye snorts and boots up one of the many computers in the room.

 

“Oh, my dear Fitz. When has that ever stopped me before?”

 

“We need you to replace security footage in the EngSci building,” Jemma says. While Fitz and Skye seem to be rather familiar with one another, Fitz’s eyes don’t wander to her while she speaks and he doesn’t finish her sentences or give her _that_ look. The one that Jemma is so used to being on the receiving end of. Her jealousy for the other girl finally dissipates completely, and Jemma is ready to get down to business.

 

“Not a problem,” Skye grins. “Should be easy.”

 

“And we need you to not tell anyone,” Fitz jumps in. Skye rolls her eyes.

 

“Obviously, Fitz. I don’t exactly broadcast my less-than-legal activities,” Skye tells him. He shoots her a look. “Okay, the Rising Tide stuff doesn’t count. And if anything ever happens with that, I’ve got a great defense attorney.”

 

“Rising Tide?” Bobbi asks. Skye eyes her wearily.

 

“Aren’t you Gonzales’s kid?”

 

“Step-daughter,” Bobbi corrects. “How did you know that?”

 

“Everyone knows that,” Hunter tells her.

 

“Well yeah,” Skye says. “But my dad—adoptive dad—is actually a detective in the department.”

 

“Coulson!” Bobbi exclaims with recognition. “You’re Phil Coulson’s daughter.”

 

“Mhm,” Skye hums. “Since I was twelve, anyway. And Melinda May is my mom. She’s the Chief Deputy of the Public Defender’s office, so whatever you guys are about to do—I can probably have your back.”

 

“What an interesting couple,” Jemma muses. “An investigator and a criminal defense attorney.”

 

Skye laughs. “Oh I know. They kind of have a forbidden love thing going on. Anyway, what time do you need me to black out the feed and replace it?”

 

“We’re heading over now,” Fitz tells her. “So cut the feed from 10 until we’re out of there.”  


Skye gives him a little salute. “Yessir. Hi, Hunter.”

 

Hunter grins at her. “Hey, Skye. Suppose we forgot to say hello, huh?”

 

“Seems like we always forget to do that.”

 

Now it’s Bobbi’s turn to tense up, an acute sense of discomfort filling her. Sure, she and Hunter aren’t _really_ anything. They’ve been sleeping together on a regular basis and he’s taken her on a few dates—but they’re far from exclusive. She just hasn’t exactly been fooling around with anyone else. She’s busy with school and with this new criminal enterprise they’re trying to get up and running.

 

Hunter, apparently, might be busy with other things. And people.

 

They say their goodbyes to Skye and make their way toward campus. Fitz fiddles with the gadgets in his pockets and Jemma keeps pace beside him as he rambles.

 

“If we get caught you’ll get expelled,” he warns her.

 

“I won’t get _expelled,_ it would be my first offense. I would just be subject to some minor disciplinary action. You need to relax.”

 

“You say that like stealing expensive research materials isn’t an issue.”

 

“Of course it’s an issue,” she snaps. He looks at her in surprise. “I’m tired of you acting like I’m not taking this seriously. I understand how serious the consequences may be. I don’t _like_ breaking the rules. I like following them. It makes me feel nice. But your mum needs this and so do you so I’m doing it _for you.”_

“Yeah, mate,” Hunter cuts in. “We all get that this isn’t the best way to go about things. But we’re here because we care about you and your mum. No matter what happens, we’ll all be okay. It’s first offenses for most of you.”

 

“If you get caught again, you’re going to prison,” Fitz says hotly. Bobbi’s eyes widen and she turns to Hunter in surprise.

 

“Again?” Bobbi asks.

 

“I don’t have the best relationship with the town sheriff,” Hunter admits.

 

“And why’s that?” Bobbi says.

 

“Well see, I keep stealing things and he keeps catching me,” Hunter sasses. “Makes it a bit hard on our budding friendship.”

 

“Okay, so Hunter can’t get caught,” Bobbi muses.

 

“Better me than any of you,” Hunter interrupts.

 

“You’re joking,” Bobbi says. “Hunter, you could go to _jail. Jail,_ Hunter. Hunter, _jail.”_

Hunter walks a bit faster. “I can handle it again.”

 

Bobbi’s jaw drops. “Again?!”

 

“You two can talk about this later,” Fitz interrupts. Hunter shoots him a grateful look. “Let’s go over the plan one more time.”

 

By the time they’ve reached the EngSci building, they’ve put their plan into concrete motion. Jemma can scan them into the building with her ID card, but they’ll have to use Fitz’s lock-picking device for the lab doors, which are off-limits after 6 p.m. Jemma will search for the chemicals she needs and Fitz will get any engineering equipment he requires. Bobbi will be the look-out on the outside of the building at one entrance, Hunter at the other.

 

It goes surprisingly well, and when they’ve filled their backpacks with everything they need, used Jemma’s special spray formula that eliminates traces of fingerprints and DNA on every surface they’ve touched, and met back up with Bobbi and Hunter, Fitz feels strange kind of euphoria.

 

“Holy shit, we did it!”

 

Jemma laughs. “We really did.”

 

“Stealing from a lab isn’t that big of a deal,” Hunter reminds them, but even he’s smiling. “So how long is it going to take you two to build these guns?”

 

“Night Night Guns,” Fitz corrects. Bobbi snorts out a laugh and Hunter just stares at him, clearly unamused. Jemma, on the other hand, has little reaction.

 

“He’s always called them that,” Jemma informs them. “I suggested ICERs, but—“

 

“—that implies that there’s a freezing component to the weapon!” Fitz argues. The adrenaline in his veins gives him the courage to grab her hand as they walk toward Jemma and Bobbi’s off-campus apartment. She squeezes it back even as she rebuts him.

 

“Nobody would think that,” Jemma sighs.

 

“I would,” Bobbi says sheepishly. Jemma glares at her.

 

“Give the man his silly title,” Hunter relents. “Night Night Gun it is.”

 

Jemma grumbles under her breath, letting them into her and Bobbi’s building with her key card. They ride the elevator up and Hunter lets out a small whoosh of appreciation for their upscale building.

 

“Damn,” he mumbles. “This place is posh.”

 

“Yeah well, you never come inside,” Bobbi tells him. Jemma briefly wonders where exactly they’ve been shagging if not in the apartment, but decides that it’s a question she probably doesn’t want answered.

 

They make their way over the threshold and Jemma observes the tension in Hunter’s shoulders. He’s obviously uncomfortable in their space, and her mind immediately flashes back to the state of his own home—and his mother. He’d shoved the papers into the 1975 Camaro he’d driven to the center of town, by Skye’s apartment.

 

“Why don’t you two stay here tonight?” Jemma suggests quickly. Fitz raises his eyebrows so high that they nearly disappear into his hair. “It’s a Friday night after all. Fitz and I could work on our designs and we can all head back to the warehouse together tomorrow. For planning.”

 

She knows she’s listing too many reasons but she can’t stop herself. Hunter’s eyes are grateful when they meet hers and she feels a swell in her chest at the thought of what his house must be like. Even though he’s nearly 24, it doesn’t seem as though he has much choice in his living arrangments.

 

Fitz seems to catch on to Hunter and Jemma’s unspoken communication, recalling the shattered glass and shouting he’d heard while he tried to speak loudly over the sound in the front yard so that Bobbi wouldn’t hear.

 

“Yeah, that’s good,” Fitz agrees a bit too fast. “I’ll give mum a call and let her know. Hunter?”

 

Hunter nods. “Yeah, we can kip in the living room.”

 

“Don’t be stupid,” Bobbi tells him. “We’re sleeping together. I think we can _literally_ sleep together.”

 

“Good. I wasn’t looking forward to sharing the couch with this lug,” Fitz jokes as Jemma flicks on the tea kettle.

 

Jemma’s eyes are vaguely wounded and he doesn’t totally understand it. He wants to hold her hand again, like he had on their walk back over here. He wants to hold her and he wants to kiss her and wake up next to her and take her out for dinners at nice places he can’t afford.

 

But right now he can’t. Not with his mum so sick and his future hanging in the balance.

 

He just hopes she _knows,_ really knows, how he feels about her.


	3. lived forever, stripes of gold

Fitz narrows one eye and levels the gun in front of him, holding onto it with both hands. Jemma watches him with an interest that is decidedly two-fold; first, she really wants to see if the mechanics of the gun work, and second, there’s something incredibly sexy about watching him set up for a shot.

 

He cocks the trigger and shoots at the wall, the empty dendrotoxin bullets exploding against the wall of the warehouse.

 

“Not a very sharp shot,” Bobbi teases. Jemma is glad that her best friend has spoken up, because she’s briefly concerned that she’s forgotten the English language.

 

“That was nice and quiet,” Hunter observes. He hops off of the hood of the car he’s sitting on and holds out a hand. ”Mind if I give her a go?”

 

“And why does the Night Night Gun require a female pronoun?” Bobbi asks, arms crossed over her chest as she eyes Hunter. He grins at her.

 

“It’s a compliment,” he says with a shrug. “Guns are dangerous and powerful. So are most women I know.”

 

This doesn’t seem to appease her in the slightest. “Well let’s see what you’ve got, Teacup.”

 

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he tells her, looking way from the warehouse wall to look at her. He fires the weapon several times and hits the exact center of the red circle they had spray-painted onto it.

 

“Show off,” Fitz grumbles under his breath. Jemma laughs and gives his hand a squeeze.

 

“I wouldn’t say that being bad with guns is a negative thing,” she says. “I rather like that you’re not violent, you know.”

 

This does make him feel significantly better, and he smiles at her. The smile falls right off of his face when she begins speaking again.

 

“Now we’ll put in the real bullets. You or Hunter can shoot me and we’ll time how long it takes for me to wake up.”

 

“Like hell,” Fitz snorts. “We’ll test the gun on me.”

 

Jemma narrows her eyes and storms over toward Hunter, yanking the handgun out of his grasp. She opens up the case that holds the neurotoxin-filled bullets and loads the gun a bit more aggressively than is strictly necessary. She strides back over to Fitz and presses the gun into his palm.

 

“Shoot me.”

 

“No!” Fitz gasps, horrified at the very prospect. “We shouldn’t even be testing this on humans yet.”

 

“It’s _my_ chemical composition, and we need to know how it works,” Jemma attempts to reason with him. “So we need to test it, and if anyone is going to be knocked out by it, it really ought to be me.”

 

He shakes his head vehemently. “Again, it’s not gonna happen. We’re not discussing it.”

 

“I think I have the right to decide whether or not I’m going to get shot with—“

  
“--do you hear yourself right now, Jemma?! This is ridiculous!”

 

“You’re the one being ridiculous!” she sighs, throwing her hands up.

 

“Oh really? Because if I recall correctly, you tested that hypno-beam on yourself, and you didn’t wake up for nearly an hour!”

 

“Ugh, Fitz! Not the stupid hypno-beam again!”

 

“Yes, the stupid hypno-beam again!” he shouts. Bobbi watches them cautiously, prepared to intervene if things go further south.

 

“I told you there was a risk that—“

 

“—you told me that you’d be out fifteen minutes!”

 

“Just test it on me!” Hunter cuts in. “I can take it and this way you’ll both shut the bloody hell up!”

 

“Also not an option,” Fitz barks at him. “We shouldn’t be testing this on humans yet, that’s final. And we’re certainly not going to be testing it on humans I care about!”

 

“Aw, mate,” Hunter grins. “Such a little softy.”

 

“You just offered to test it on yourself not ten minutes ago,” Jemma recalls with a glare at Fitz. This starts him off again; he launches in on a tangent and Jemma matches him step for step.

 

They’re so busy arguing with each other, practically toe-to-toe, that they don’t notice Hunter sidling up to them. In one easy move, he grabs the gun from Jemma’s hand, cocks it, and shoots himself point-blank in the thigh.

 

“HUNTER!” Bobbi yells, running toward him as he hits the dirt.

 

“Shit,” Fitz curses, sliding onto the ground beside his best friend. Bobbi beats him there, pulling Hunter’s head into her lap and anxiously checking his pulse.

 

“Move,” Jemma demands. “I need to monitor him.”

 

Bobbi narrows her eyes, shooting her a death stare. “I think you’ve done enough.”

 

“I need to check his heart rate,” Jemma says apologetically. “I didn’t think he would just go off and shoot himself, Bobbi. I’m sorry.”

 

“I should have seen that coming,” Fitz sighs, collapsing back with his elbows on his knees. “Impulsive son of a bitch.”

 

Jemma shoots him and look and presses her fingers to Hunter’s neck, mumbling numbers under her breath. “He’s stable, same as if he was sleeping.”

 

Bobbi doesn’t look comforted by this at all. “How long is he going to be out?”

 

Jemma grimaces and exchanges a look with Fitz. “Well, you see, in theory it should—“

 

“—theoretically, we’re looking at anywhere between—“

 

“—thirty to forty minutes?”

 

“Thirty to forty minutes?” Bobbi yelps. “And what happens if it’s even longer than that? Is there any chance he could be damaged?”

 

“No,” Fitz says immediately.

 

Jemma is suspiciously silent, and Fitz practically snaps his neck as he looks at her.

 

“Jemma, there isn’t, right?”

 

“It’s nearly statistically insignificant,” Jemma squeaks, shoulders raising toward her ears.

 

“You don’t even have _statistics!”_ Fitz shouts.

 

“Hunter will be just fine. Let’s drag him indoors on the bench in the garage, put a blanket beneath his head. And I’ll need his pants off.”

 

“You need his…pants off?” Bobbi asks.

 

Jemma shoots her a look. “To check the sight of the bullet wound.”

 

“I thought you said it wouldn’t leave wounds!”

 

“It doesn’t, really,” she clarifies. “There’s probably just a bruise or a mark, but I want to check the extent of it.”

 

Bobbi grabs Hunter’s arms and Fitz grabs his feet, hauling him toward the warehouse and dropping him with a loud thump on the tool bench.

 

“Watch his head!” Jemma gasps.

 

Bobbi glares at her. “What do you need to monitor him?”

 

“Ideally I would take his blood pressure,” Jemma fusses, undoing Hunter’s pants quickly and yanking them down his legs. She can’t help but snort derisively. “Really? He wears Union Jack pants?”

 

Bobbi’s lips quirk up a little bit too. “Us Americans have a little bit of a Brit fetish, I guess, cause I am _so_ into those.”

 

Jemma lifts his boxers gently, finding a large, deep purple bruise where he’d shot himself. Bobbi stiffens beside her.

 

“Holy shit,” the blonde curses. “Jemma, that looks really bad.”

 

“I certainly didn’t expect there to be so much superficial damage,” Jemma says, turning toward Fitz. “Make a note to lower the pressure in the chamber.”

 

“This is why I didn’t want to test on humans!” Fitz huffs. He still grabs his notebook and makes a note of it.

 

“He did also shoot himself point-blank,” Bobbi says helpfully. “So that could have something to do with how bad the bruising is, right?”

 

Jemma nods curtly. “Yes, absolutely.”

 

Then Bobbi lifts Hunter’s head to place it back in her lap, fingers dancing through his hair. His eyes are still wide open and it freaks her out—it’s making him look dead rather than sleeping, so she gently shuts his eye lids.

 

It’s an incredibly tense thirty-seven minutes, but eventually Hunter groans lightly. “Bob?”

 

“Hey,” she whispers. “Thank god, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

 

“Like I drank up a liquor store,” he whines. “That’s quite the headache.”

 

Jemma jots this down as a side effect on her note pad.

 

“Can we give him some water?” Bobbi asks anxiously. “Maybe it’ll help flush out the toxins?”

 

“Aw, babes,” Hunter grins. “If I’d known you cared this much…”

 

For once, his teasing doesn’t seem to deter her. She’d watched him shoot himself and then fall to the ground, apparently lifeless. He can tease her all he wants, and she’ll be woman enough to admit that she had been heart-stoppingly afraid.

 

“Never do something that stupid and reckless again,” she says sharply. “I mean it.”

 

He looks properly chastened and nods sheepishly against her legs. “Sorry, Bob. I just wanted their pointless arguing to stop.”

 

“It wasn’t pointless arguing,” Fitz sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It was an argument about shooting someone with an untested neurotoxin gun. There was most definitely a point.”

 

“Good news is,” Hunter says as he sits up with a heavy groan, “it works, and I’m alive.”

 

Bobbi rolls her eyes, even as one hand comes up to rub little circles between his shoulder blades. He sips on the water Jemma hands him and lets his eyes close against the light.

 

“Damn, my head hurts.”

 

“I’ll get you some parcemetol,” Jemma says anxiously, darting off once more. She digs through her bag. “Here you are.”

 

He swallows them down and leans back against Bobbi once again. “So, at least we know we’ve got weaponry.”

 

Fitz glares at him. “That was incredibly stupid, Hunter. I mean it. You pull something like that again and this whole deal is off.”

 

Hunter bristles. “In case you forgot, _mate_ , I was doing this on my own long before all this.”

 

“We’re doing this to save my mum’s bloody life!” Fitz explodes. “But that doesn’t mean I want you to lose yours in the process!”

 

He stands and throws a wrench at the wall of the warehouse, and Jemma rushes forward to put her hands on his shoulders. “Fitz, please calm down.”

 

He breathes deeply a few times.

 

“Let’s take a walk,” Jemma suggests. “You and me. Bobbi can watch after Hunter for a while.”

 

“That’s a good idea,” Bobbi agrees immediately. Fitz and Jemma disappear out of the back door to the warehouse, walking out toward the fields, and Hunter twists around to look at her.

 

“I really wasn’t trying to be stupid.”

 

“I know you weren’t,” she sighs, looking down at the ground. “I was honestly pretty close to doing the same thing. When they bicker it can go on for hours and hours.”

 

He snorts. “Tell me about it. As soon as he dropped out, she was always around.”

 

Bobbi smiles tightly. “Yeah, I couldn’t figure out where she was going. She didn’t really…tell me. Until that night she set us up. Sometimes it feels like…”

 

Her voice trails off and Hunter nudges her lightly with his knee. “Like what?”

 

Bobbi shakes her head. “Like Jemma’s becoming…someone I don’t know. She’s been my best friend since the first week of college. I feel like we’ve grown up together. So much has happened to us over the last few years, and we’ve lived together for so long, but now she’s scheming and plotting and leaving me out.”

 

“That’s why she brought you in, love,” Hunter says gently. “She didn’t want to leave you out. It wasn’t just about your skills or what you could bring to the table. Trust me, the little bird was agonizing over it for weeks.”

 

The wrinkle between her brows softens. “Really?”

 

“Really,” he assures her, tangling his hand with hers. “Jemma is still Jemma. She’s still an overexcited little nerd.”

 

Bobbi laughs and squeezes his hand. “Thank you, Hunter. Really.”

 

“Of course,” he says sincerely. He leans forward and she meets him halfway, brushing her lips against his. It’s not something they ordinarily do outside of the bedroom. “So, I really gave you a scare, huh?”

 

“You’re only going to be able to milk that for so long,” she says warningly. He laughs and tugs her closer, arms wrapping around her waist.

 

“Just say ‘when’,” he murmurs into her neck.

 

She doesn’t say anything for a long while.

 

***

 

“Fitz, you need to calm down,” Jemma pants, scrambling to keep up with his quick pace. “Or at least _slow_ down!”

 

“He could have been really hurt,” Fitz snaps, whirling on her. She stops and nearly falls. “This isn’t—I know you keep saying you’re taking this seriously, and I believe you. But Hunter? Hunter isn’t. If he gets caught again—“

 

“He’s going back to jail, I know,” Jemma says softly. She steps forward to touch his forearm. “But you know how Hunter is. You know him better than anyone. He deflects with humor and charm, but I guarantee you he’s taking this just as seriously as we are.”

 

“What if I lose my mum?” Fitz asks, voice tight with tears. He screws his eyes shut to hide from her and it breaks her heart. “And I lose him, because he goes back to prison? What if I lose you, because I get you deported?”

 

“Hey,” Jemma whispers. “No, you can’t think like that.”

 

“I can’t _stop_ thinking like that,” he says fiercely. His eyes open to stare into hers and whatever it is she sees there, it causes her to pull him into a tight embrace.

 

“I know,” she soothes. “I know. I can keep saying it’ll all be okay, but until your mum is well and we’re all in the clear, you won’t feel like it. And I’m sorry that it’s all I can do.”

 

He wraps his arms around her waist and squeezes her. “I hate this. All of it.”

 

“I know you do,” she murmurs into his shoulder. “I do too. But Fitz, think about it. We just created a non-lethal weapon!”

 

She pushes him back to grin up at him excitedly and he can’t help but smile back. “We did, didn’t we?”

 

“When this is all over, Fitz, we’re going to do such amazing things together,” she gushes. “That gun can save so many lives, it can make entire societies safer, and we will have done that!”

 

“Together, huh?”

 

“Of course,” Jemma says matter-of-factly, arms still wrapped around his neck. “You’re the only person who can even halfway keep up with me.”

 

He scoffs. “Halfway? I don’t think so, Simmons. I’ve been running circles around you for years.”

 

“And yet you still haven’t caught me,” she teases, smirking. His eyes dart to her lips and her breath hitches in her throat. She eases herself ever so slightly closer, careful not to move too quickly…

 

And then he drops his arms, stepping away from her with an awkward little shrug. “We should get back. If Hunter is feeling better, we need to work on the plan. Mum’s first bill is due in two days.”

 

Jemma makes her best neutral face and blinks rapidly. “Yes, right. The plan. We should—the plan. Capital P Plan.”

 

They make their way back to the warehouse in silence, a conscious and uncomfortable distance between their hands the whole way there.

 

***

 

“Do we remember the plan?” Jemma asks nervously.

 

“For the last time, Simmons, yes!” Hunter sighs, slamming his head against the seat of Bobbi’s car.

 

Bobbi glares at him and smiles at Jemma in the rear-view mirror. “Mike will be manning security right now. My back windows are tinted so he probably won’t even see you. You know Mike, he’ll just wave me through.”

 

“Then Hunter and I will be dropped off one block away from Daniel’s house,” Jemma picks up. “We’ll use Fitz’s devices and take his father’s car.”

 

“Don’t forget to put on the holograms,” Fitz reminds her with a poke on the shoulder. “They’ll change the license plates. Well, obviously they won’t actually _change_ them, but—“

 

“—I know, I know,” Jemma finishes. “They’ll be indistinguishable from real license plates so we’ll make it back to the warehouse.”

 

“Are you sure you want her to go with you?” Fitz asks Hunter. “You and I could do it.”

 

“it’s gotta be Jemma,” Bobbi says. “Mike knows Jemma’s face, he’ll just wave her through.”

 

“Won’t he notice she’s driving a Mercedes and not her Mini?” Fitz persists. “It just seems like it could be a bad idea, is all.”

 

“Jemma can talk her way out of the gates if Mike asks,” Bobbi says confidently. Fitz and Hunter laugh in tandem and Jemma crosses her arms over her chest.

 

“Hey! I can!”

 

“You’re the worst liar in the world, Simmons,” Hunter says. “And I mean that as a compliment. It probably means you’re a good person…or something.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Bobbi has been coaching me, thank you very much.”

 

“And Barbara is authorized to teach a master class on lying how, exactly?” Hunter sasses, looking over at Bobbi with a challenge in his eyes.

 

“You try growing up with a police chief as your step-father. You get incredibly good at lying. I’m probably better at sneaking in and out of places than you are, and this is my first crime,” Bobbi shoots back.

 

“Can we stop calling it that?” Fitz whines.

 

“What would you prefer for us to call it?” Hunter asks teasingly. “The Steal Steal Game? Swiper Yes Swiping?”

 

“You watched Dora the Explorer?” Jemma asks, leaning forward. “You seem way too old for that.”

 

“Hush, you.”

 

“Everyone hush,” Bobbi corrects. “Just…act normal, okay? I doubt he’ll even stop us.”

 

They arrive at the grand gates to Bobbi’s housing tract, separated from the rest of the town by a security booth and two large iron fences. Mike Peterson, the nightly security guard, waves her through as soon as the light catches on her face, and she smiles at him happily.

 

“We should have put Jemma in the front,” Bobbi grumbles as soon as the gates close behind them. “What if he says something to Robert about me coming through with a boy?”

 

“What if he says something to Robert about you coming through _at all?”_ Jemma asks. Her hands flutter in front of her. “Oh god, we’ll be caught for sure!”

 

“Jemma, calm down,” Bobbi says firmly. “Fitz and I will just stop by my house while you two are lifting the car.”

 

“Have I told you it’s rather sexy when you talk criminal?”

 

“Shut up, Hunter. Fitz and I will go over there, I’ll say I’m grabbing something I left behind on my last visit. Maybe we’ll even swipe a couple bottles of fancy champagne, huh?”

 

“Ah yes!” Hunter exclaims, adopting an affected accent. “We _must_ have revels.”

 

Bobbi pulls the car over at a corner and nods. “Alright, Jemma and Hunter. Off you go. You’ve got 17 minutes before the next patrol car comes down this road.”

 

Hunter salutes her grandly. “Aye, aye, captain.”

 

Jemma scrambles out of the car like a baby deer learning how to walk, and Bobbi nearly face-palms right then and there. Hunter takes it in stride though, throwing an arm over her shoulders and leading the way toward Daniel’s house.

 

“Why did we choose this house again?” Fitz asks from the backseat as Bobbi turns toward her own house.

 

“He was my high school boyfriend,” Bobbi smirks. “And his dad is a real asshole. I mean, I can’t _prove_ it, but I just _know_ he slept with a girl in my senior class.”

 

“While you were in high school?” Fitz groans in disgust. “Ugh.”

 

“Exactly. So I won’t cry too hard for him when his precious car goes missing.”

 

“If it’s so nice, why doesn’t he park it in the garage?”

 

“Never underestimate the false sense of security that a gated community will give to rich people,” Bobbi tells him sagely. She pulls her car into a long driveway and sighs. “I’m truly sorry you have to do this with me.”

 

“It’s fine,” he says immediately. “If anyone should be saying that, it’s _me.”_

 

“Really, Fitz, it’s not a big deal,” Bobbi tells him. Then she grimaces. “Okay, it is a big deal. You know what I meant.”

 

She unlocks the door to her massive house that Fitz is pretty sure costs more than his mother has made in her entire lifetime, and calls out into the marble entryway.

 

“Mom? Robert?” she shouts. Her voice echoes loudly in the sparsely decorated mansion. She deftly flicks several light switches, illuminating the house. “Huh. I don’t think they’re home.”

 

She checks the garage and finds both her mom and step-dad’s cars missing. She turns back to Fitz with the kind of smirk that only spells trouble for him.

 

“Oh no,” he groans. “Bobbi, whatever this is—“

 

“Forget the champagne,” Bobbi grins. “Let’s grab some top-shelf shit and have a bonfire!”

 

“Oh good god,” Fitz moans into his palms. “Bobbi, this is not—Bonnie and Clyde, okay?”

 

“Have you ever seen Bonnie and Clyde?” she asks dubiously. “Because they most definitely never do any of this.”

 

“You get what I meant!” he exclaims.

 

“We’re already stealing an eighty-thousand dollar car tonight, we might as well steal a six hundred dollar bottle of whiskey from my step-dad,” Bobbi shrugs.

 

“Six—six hundred dollars?!” Fitz yelps. “That’s—“

 

“As much as one of your mom’s medical prescriptions?” she asks. “Yep. Still feel guilty?”

 

Fitz shakes his head. “Fuck the rich bastard.”

 

Bobbi laughs and drags him to their family room, where a full bar stands in a corner. She climbs up on top, wriggles a board loose, and returns with a small silver key, dangling it happily in front of him.

 

“This unlocks the good stuff,” Bobbi explains. They rummage through the many bottles stashed in the cabinet, and Bobbi emerges victoriously. “This one is too perfect!”

 

Fitz takes it from her hands and reads the label. “Stitzel-Weller Very Very Old Fitzgerald?”

 

“Oh c’mon, it’s even got your name built in,” she teases. Then she snatches a bottle of Chivas Regal as well. “Might as well grab an extra, right? Let’s get out of here, Jemma and Hunter should be just about ready to go.”

 

***

 

The plan goes off without a hitch. Jemma attaches the holographs to the license plates while Hunter using the lock picking device and then starts the car with it. Jemma slides into the driver’s seat, positively giddy—and then looks at the dash.

 

“Oh no,” she moans. “Oh no.”

 

“What?” Hunter asks in a panic. “Cause love, we’ve gotta move. The car is on, which means the car is making noise.”

 

“It’s—this is a manual!”

 

“You don’t know how to drive manual?!”

 

“I took my automatic test!” Jemma squacks. “And when I re-took the license test here, they don’t make you choose!”

 

“Okay,” Hunter says calmly. “Alright, this is fine. See that little pedal near the break?”

 

Jemma nods wildly, like an amped up bobblehead.

 

“Good, alright. That’s your clutch. You’ll need that, but not right away.”

 

It’s jerky and inelegant, a total clusterfuck if Hunter were to be totally honest, but they manage to make it to the gates. Unfortunately, Jemma’s erratic driving causes Mike to wave her down.

 

“Jemma Simmons!” he greets cheerily. “I didn’t see you come in with Bobbi.”

 

“I didn’t, actually,” Jemma half-shouts at him. Mike winces and Hunter grabs her leg.

 

“Jemma was visiting another friend in the neighborhood, she offered to give me a ride home,” Hunter cuts in. Mike eyes him suspiciously.

 

“I just saw you ride in with Bobbi about 20 minutes ago.”

 

“We have an open relationship,” Jemma blurts out. Hunter has to do everything in his power to appear completely unaffected by this. “The three of us, that is. Please don’t—tell Robert. And don’t mention we were even here. It’s just—well, we do kind of a…swingers thing?”

 

“Oh my God,” Hunter mumbles to himself. “Oh, sweet Lord.”

 

Mike clears his throat loudly and shifts. “I guess uh, college right? You only live once?”

 

“Something like that,” Jemma breathes. “So can you open the gate for us?”

 

Mike slams down on the button so hard, Hunter wonders if he might have broken it. “Absolutely. You two have a good night.”

 

“Oh, we will,” Jemma says in her best sultry voice, toying with the ends of her hair as she shifts awkwardly.

 

“Good god, woman!” Hunter exclaims. “That was horrible!”

 

“I didn’t think it was so bad,” Jemma huffs. “And you weren’t much help either. At least the swingers thing distracted him from the fact that I’m suddenly driving someone else’s car!”

 

As soon as they’re far enough away from the gated community, Hunter tells her to pull over so that he can take over driving.

 

“If you warp this clutch, we won’t get much for it,” Hunter explains easily. “Swap.”

 

She sighs in resignation and walks around to get in the passenger seat. “I was doing quite well though, wasn’t I?”

 

“I will give it to you, Simmons, you’re a quick learner.”

 

“Thank you,” she grins proudly.

 

He starts off again. “You know, Mack told me if I actually managed to lift this car, he’d give me ten thousand dollars.”

 

“Only ten thousand?”

 

“Only?” Hunter scoffs. “Love, ten thousand dollars is equivalent to a million in chop shop dollars.”

 

“Oh sorry,” Jemma quips sarcastically. “I must not have read the news on the current exchange rate. It just doesn’t seem like much for this kind of car.”

 

“That’s the seedy underbelly of the criminal world for you.”

 

“Is there someone else who could give us even more?” Jemma ponders out loud. “Because if there were, we could take it to them inside.”

 

“No, no, no,” Hunter denies immediately. “Mack is good people, and he’s honest.”

 

Jemma raises her eyebrows. “He runs a chop shop.”

 

“And you just stole a car. Do you consider yourself to be good people, Simmons?”

 

“You win,” she grumbles. “We’ll take it to Mack, then.”

 

“Hey, Jemma?” Hunter asks after a beat.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Thank you for not telling Bobbi about what you saw at my house,” he says quietly. It’s the most solemn she’s ever seen him, and there’s something incredibly off-putting about it. “I really appreciate it. I know she’s your best friend, and I—“

 

“If you ever need a place to crash, Bobbi or no Bobbi, I’m always here for you,” she blurts out. “I mean it. That looked…very bad, the other day.”

 

He laughs humorlessly. “Yeah well, it’s certainly not good. My dad went to jail when I was young. We moved here, we got citizenship, he got arrested. And then mum and I were stuck, in the middle of nowhere in a country where we didn’t know a single soul.”

 

“Was she like this before that?”

 

He shakes his head. “No. She used to be warm. But Dad’s doing twenty to life, now, and she’s just a bit too deep in the drink to take care of herself.”

 

“So you do all of this,” Jemma says, gesturing around her. “Stealing and lying and all of that, it’s to support your mum.”

 

He shifts gears and keeps his eyes glued to the road. “If I don’t help her, no one will. I’m all she’s got, and it’s not like I got much of an education in high school.”

 

“How hard that must be,” Jemma muses softly. “To be someone’s only hope.”

 

“You’ve no idea, sweetheart.”

 

“I’m sure that I don’t. I do promise, I’ll keep this between you and me. Bobbi won’t know any of it,” Jemma assures him.

 

“Thank you, Simmons.”

 

When they meet Bobbi and Fitz at the warehouse ten minutes later, their friends are already celebrating with plastic cups filled with whiskey.

 

“Oi! You two started without us?” Hunter asks in mock-outrage. “I thought we were taking it to Mack’s tonight.”

 

“We don’t have to do that right this minute,” Fitz says easily, leaning back on Bobbi’s trunk. “We’re going to drink incredibly, stupidly expensive alcohol and have a bonfire. And tomorrow, we’ll deal with money and bills and my mother’s cancer.”

 

So that’s what they do. They build a massive fire and drink six hundred dollar whiskey out of novelty plastic cups. They play music from a crackling radio and they tell their best ghost stories from their childhoods. They play a few games of Never Have I Ever, and each and every time, Hunter loses.

 

The warm reflection of the firelight on Fitz’s face is a welcome distraction from the guilt setting into Jemma’s bones about what she did. Sure, Daniel’s dad is a bad person, and he certainly doesn’t need a car that nice. But then she pictures his face when he walks outside in the morning to go to work, finding his car gone.

 

She’s just ruined, at the very least, someone’s day. More than likely, the repercussions of a stolen car will be even higher.

 

Then Fitz smiles at her, one that’s full of relief and hope for the first time since he dropped out of school and moved home, and she pushes away the guilt and the fear, instead tangling her arm with his and leaning her head on his shoulder. She listens to Bobbi tell an animated story about their first weekend in college, and decides that if she could choose any moment to live in forever, it would be this one.

 

She would do some horrible things, she thinks, to build a time freezing device and keep them all like this, exactly as they are now.

 

Well, not quite exactly. If it was exactly how she wanted it, Fitz would be kissing her temple with the same ease that Hunter does Bobbi’s. Fitz would steal kisses from her lips every few minutes, would gaze at her like she’s the brightest thing in a hundred foot radius even as they sit in front of a blazing fire.

 

Just like her guilt, she forces it down and pushes it away, visualizing her bitterness receding out of the soles of her feet.

 

“I should head home,” Bobbi says. “We have to take a cab. Hunter, can you walk us to town?”

 

“We’re leaving already?” Jemma asks, disappointed. “We’ve only had a couple of drinks.”

 

“I know, but it’s late and I’ve got a presentation tomorrow,” Bobbi reminds her.

 

“I think I’ll stay,” Jemma says, eyes glued to the flames. “My lab isn’t until 3:00.”

 

“How about I come back home with you then?” Hunter asks a bit hopefully. He’s met with an eager nod. “I can drive.”

 

“No you can’t,” she snaps, grabbing his keys just as he pulls them from his pocket. “We’ll walk into town and get a cab.”

 

Their bickering can be heard as they walk through the warehouse and out of the other side. Fitz turns to Jemma with a smirk on his face.

 

“Do you reckon we sound like that when we fight?”

 

“Oh definitely not,” Jemma deadpans. “I think we sound far worse.”

 

He shakes his head with a warm laugh and slips his free arm around her. She looks up at him and she sees it happen, sees the part of him holding back from her snap.

 

He tosses aside his plastic cup, plants his hands on her cheeks, and kisses her. They’ve kissed a few times already, sporadically and usually ending in disaster because his life still isn’t any better than it was just before she’d told him how she felt.

 

She lets herself get lost in the sensations of his teeth grazing her lips, the breathy little noises he makes when she runs her nails down certain parts of his body. It takes her a very long time to realize that the fire has gone out and the stubble from his cheeks has left her face a little bit raw.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay with sleeping here?” Fitz asks as he leads her back to the warehouse hand-in-hand. “We’ve got an air mattress and some rather comfortable blankets, actually, since Hunter crashes here a lot.”

 

“Not a problem, as long as I get to share that mattress with you,” she smiles. He grins back at her, but now that they’re away from the fire, she sees the walls begin to climb up between them once again.

 

Once he’s blown up the air mattress and they’ve both stripped down to their skivvies for comfort, Jemma attempts to inch toward him for a proper snuggle. He very quickly rolls away from her, and she swallows back the sting of rejection that comes from it.

 

“So we’re just going to do this, then?” she finally says, voice cold. “You’re going to just run around kissing me when it’s good for you, but when I actually want to be with you, we can’t be?”

 

He says nothing, but she knows he’s only feigning sleep. She falls asleep before him, despite her best efforts to outlast him in their tense little game of pretending to be unconscious.

 

Even by the morning, things haven’t warmed in the space between them and Jemma can’t find it in her to care. Her head aches and her mouth feels like its stuffed with alcohol soaked cotton balls, so she drinks some bad tap water, pulls on her clothes, and leaves without waking him up. He and Hunter can take care of the chop shop on their own.

 

For now, she has to go.


	4. the demons in your head (always had the best intent)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Jemma have a talk about their kiss at the bonfire and it doesn't go the way that Fitz expects. Unexpected news about his mum's treatment add an extra complication to his day. Hunter offers to venture into more dangerous territory on his own, and Bobbi becomes suspicious of the secret that Jemma is keeping for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter was going to involve a lot more action...but it still feels really important to be setting up the characters in their current situations before things really heat up. Next chapter is where we'll really start to see some of that.

Fitz pulls up out front of Jemma’s building, killing the engine on his bike and taking a deep breath. He yanks off his helmet and nervously ruffles his hair with one hand—the last thing he wants right now is for her to see him with horrible helmet hair.

 

It’s been three days since he woke up in the garage without her, and he’d known the second his eyes opened that he’d really screwed up. As the days crawled by and his texts to her went unanswered, he finally resolved to wait her out in front of her building. Her lab ends at 3:00, and it’s now 3:05. He’s sure she’ll be back home soon and then he can talk to her and try to explain his behavior.

 

Yes, he had kissed her. Yes, he had thoroughly enjoyed. Yes, he is ass-backwards in love with her.

 

But his mum is sick and dying and he’s dragged all of the people he cares about into a criminal scheme that could get each and every one of them thrown in jail for a number of different offenses. He likes to think that’s a good enough excuse for wanting to hit pause on any relationship developments between the two of them, and Jemma has been incredibly patient with him. At least, she had been, up until now.

 

His hands start to shake as the minutes tick by. He smacks a pack of Marlboros against his hip to pack them and slips one out, placing it between his lips as he lights it. Fitz inhales deeply, unable to resist the childish urge to attempt to blow smoke rings on his exhale.

 

He hears her voice coming down the block, laughing loudly at something or other, and his stomach tightens at the sound. She must be with Bobbi, and he sincerely hopes that her roommate doesn’t stand in the way of his apologizing. Bobbi’s protectiveness of Jemma is one of his favorite things about her. After all, he’s never forgotten the way the tall blonde eviscerated the creepy frat guy who had tried to feel Jemma up at a party when they were all naïve little freshmen. Right now, Bobbi’s ability to kick ass and take names suddenly doesn’t feel as great, not when it’s his ass to be kicked and his name to be taken.

 

But as Jemma gets closer, he realizes that the tall, slim figure beside her isn’t Bobbi’s. Instead, it’s a scruffy-cheeked guy, wearing a military jacket and most notably, making Jemma practically snort with laughter.

 

“You looked _insane!”_ she giggles. “The way you manipulated the static electricity—“

 

“It was easy,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Just a basic prank, honestly. Would you make fun of me if I told you I found that on Pinterest?”

 

Her jaw drops and she shoves him. “You do _not_ have a Pinterest.”

 

“Of course I do!” he yelps defensively. “How else am I supposed to plan by rustic barn chic wedding? Where else would I find mason jar crafts? My life would be meaningless.”

 

“You’re ridiculous,” she sighs, but in that affectionate and exasperated way that, up until now, he’d thought was solely reserved for him. She finally spots Fitz and freezes. “Oh. Fitz.”

 

“Hey,” he greets, flinching as his voice cracks. His hand flies up to his hand once again. “Can we uh…can we talk?”

 

Lincoln looks between them awkwardly. “I can…come back later?”

 

“No, no,” Jemma says, waving him off. “We need to work on our lab report.”

 

She digs into her bag and hands him her keys. “I’ll just let myself in then,” Lincoln says awkwardly. “I’ll prop the door open for you.”

 

She smiles at him weakly and waits until he’s in the building before she turns back to Fitz. He stomps out his cigarette and she looks at him with raised eyebrows. “I thought you stopped smoking.”

 

“I did,” he shrugs. “But, y’know…the stress and all.”

 

“What are you doing here?” she says after a beat of silence.

 

“I want to talk to you.”

 

“About what?” she asks stiffly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

 

“About…about uh, the other night,” he stutters. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

 

Something crosses over her face. “You think _that’s_ what you shouldn’t have done?”

 

Fitz clears his throat and looks at her a bit helplessly. “I…yes?”

 

She rolls her eyes and throws her hands up. “If you don’t understand why I’m upset, I’m not going to tell you.”

 

There a hundred different things he could say in this moment. He could apologize for hurting her, even if he’s not sure what it was that did it. He could beg her to explain because he’s too thick to figure it out on his own. Instead, he says the one thing that might make her angrier.

 

“Who is he?” Fitz practically demands, gesturing toward her apartment where Lincoln is currently waiting for her. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets them. Her eyes go wide and she stares at him in disbelief.

 

“You’re _seriously_ asking me that?” she questions.

 

Her lack of an answer raises up his panic flags. “You’re seriously not going to tell me?”

 

“That’s Lincoln. He’s my replacement lab partner.”

 

Jemma’s very careful word choice doesn’t go over his head. “Oh, so he’s your replacement of me?”

  
“No, you idiot,” she hisses, stepping closer to him to poke him in the chest. “He’s not, because _no one_ could replace you in my life. But I can’t—you can’t just expect me to wait around for you. I can’t just be your friend when it’s convenient for you and then—and then more than that when you have too much to drink and forget yourself.”

 

He swallows, hard, and reaches out to catch her hand where it hovers between them. “Jemma, please.”

 

“Please what?” she challenges. “What is it exactly that you want me to do?”

 

“Don’t—don’t move on,” he practically begs. “I know I haven’t been entirely fair to you—“

 

She cuts him off with a snort but he persists.

 

“We agreed to wait,” he reminds her as firmly as he can. “You said that you understood.”

 

“I _do_ understand,” Jemma says. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. What I don’t understand is why you keep toying with me.”

 

“I’m not toying with you!”

 

“You are,” she tells him. She takes a deep breath and runs a hand through her hair. “I think—I think we need to re-evaluate what we want, after this is all over.”

 

An icy feeling settles in his gut and he grabs at her hands desperately. “Jemma, no. It won’t happen again. I’ll keep my distance and when this is all over we can start over. We’ll have dinner, some place nice, and…”

 

She steps away from him, dropping his hands with tears in her eyes. “We don’t know when this will be over. I’m not saying that there’s no possibility, Fitz, I’m just saying that we need to be off the table for now. This thing between us can’t get in the way of doing what we need to do.”

 

“It won’t.”

 

“It already is,” she whispers. She looks up toward the sky to prevent tears from falling down her cheeks.

 

Fitz laughs humorlessly. “Why do I feel like you’re breaking up with me?”

 

Jemma licks her lips and stares at the ground. “There wasn’t anything to break up. I’m still going to help with…everything. And I promise you, I’m still here as your best friend. I just—can’t be more than that. Not the way that we’ve been doing it.”

 

He pinches the bridge of his nose before finally nodding. “Okay. You’re—you’re right. And I understand. I just want you to know that I wish things were different. I wish _everything_ was different.”

 

She smiles at him sadly and steps forward to hug him. He breathes in the scent of her shampoo and shuts his eyes. “I know you’re scared. But we’re going to save her and it’ll all be okay.”

 

“What if we—you and I—aren’t okay?”

 

She buries her face deeper into his shoulder. “We will be. I’ll always be with you, Fitz.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“Of course I’m sure,” she says, exasperated as she pulls away. “There’s no one else on Earth I would do any of this for.”

 

He smiles crookedly and nods toward her building. “I suppose you’ve got to head back then.”

 

“Yeah,” she sighs. “How much did you get for the car, by the way?”

 

“Ten and a half,” he says. “A little more than we expected. I gave the extra to Hunter for—“

 

“His mum’s bills,” Jemma finishes in understanding. Fitz’s eyebrows raise and she bites her lip. “I saw some things, the day I went into his house. I can’t…how long has it been that way?”

 

“A long time,” Fitz tells her, brow furrowed. “Jemma, she didn’t hurt you did she?”

 

“No, no,” Jemma denies. “She threw something but it didn’t hit me. Poor Hunter.”

 

“It’s part of why he’s so set on helping my mum. She’s been taking care of him and patching him up for ages. She’s offered to let him move in, but his mum really knows how to work him. He’s too scared to leave her on her own.”

 

“Bobbi doesn’t know,” she warns him. “Hunter didn’t exactly say why he doesn’t want her to know, but I figure we should honor that.”

 

“Of course,” Fitz agrees solemnly. He licks his lips nervously and shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “When will I see you again?”

 

“Very soon,” she smiles. “I promise. Bobbi said she had some sort of plan for the next job.”

 

“Sounds good. I’ll be seeing you, then.”

 

“Mhm,” she hums. She steps up onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Ride safe, alright?”

 

“Will do.”

 

“And cut it out with the smoking,” she calls over her shoulder. “You know I don’t like men who smoke.”

 

“Aw, c’mon,” he teases. “It makes me look like one of The Outsiders. You love those guys.”

 

She rolls her eyes with a grin and lets herself into the building. He watches her go and, against his better judgment, finds her living room window. Lincoln sits on one of the couches, paperwork spread out around him. Jemma enters and tosses her bag on the floor, shrugging out of her jacket and sitting directly beside him. Lincoln looks at her worriedly and she shakes her head, squeezing her shoulder supportively.

 

Fitz finally looks away, tugging on his helmet and starting the bike. This is what he gets for pushing her away. He speeds off toward the highway, letting the sound of his motor drown out his thoughts.

 

***

 

When Fitz gets back home, he immediately dashes up the stairs to check on his mum. She sits up weakly in bed, mustering up a small smile.

 

“Hello, sweetheart. Where’d you go?”

 

“Ah, I just went to visit Jemma,” Fitz responds. “Did you hear back from Dr. Cho today?”

 

“Mhm,” she hums. “I’m afraid the next treatment is even pricier, love.”

 

Fitz freezes, halting in his reorganization of her pill bottles on the dresser. This is the last thing he needs today. He whips around to stare at her. “By how much?”

 

“Another thousand,” she says regretfully. “Now Leo, we’ve talked about this, and—“

 

“No,” he bites out. “No, mum. We’re not giving up, okay? You can’t…you can’t do that to me.”

 

Her eyes swim with tears. “If these treatments don’t work, then we’ll have lost everything for them, sweetheart. I can’t leave you with nothing. Your dad doesn’t get out for another six years.”

 

Fitz clenches his fists. “You know I want nothing to do with him anyway.”

 

“I know,” she sighs. “But he may be all you have left in this world.”

 

“Don’t say that,” he practically growls. “I’ll come up with another thousand. Don’t worry about it.”

 

“I’m afraid to ask where you’re getting all of this money,” she says warningly. “If you and Hunter are back up to his old tricks…”

  
“Mum, please,” Fitz begs. “Just…ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, alright?”

 

She narrows her blue eyes, the ones that are reflected in her son’s face, and frowns. “For a man who hates his father, you sure do sound like him.”

 

“Not fair, Mum,” he mumbles. “D’you need anything? More water? Blankets?”

 

“No, dear. I’m doing just fine. I’ve just popped in Pride and Prejudice. The one with—“

 

“Colin Firth,” Fitz finishes with a fond smile. “Please tell me I won’t have to hear all about his bum at dinner.”

 

“I could write sonnets about it,” she teases. “Bring Hunter home with you for dinner, would you? I haven’t seen him in a bit.”

 

“Yeah, mum. I will. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

 

He presses a kiss to her forehead and double checks that she has everything he needs before he trots back down the stairs. Foregoing his helmet, he hops onto his motorbike and starts it up once again, tearing off down the dirt road and across the field to the Warehouse.

 

Hunter looks up when Fitz enters, dark circles beneath his eyes. “Hey Fitz. Didn’t think you’d be coming by this afternoon. I thought you were going into the city to see Simmons.”

 

“I already did,” Fitz grunts. “Didn’t exactly go my way.”

 

“Oh?” Hunter asks, curious. He spins around on the work bench and leans forward on his knees. “How’s that?”

 

“I was waiting out front of her building for her to get back from lab and she showed up with New Me, who _of course_ has to look like some kind of Abercrombie model.”

 

“Woah, wait. New you?”

 

“Her new lab partner. _Lincoln Campbell,”_ Fitz practically spits. “You shoulda seen the way he was looking at her, tripping all over himself to make her laugh—“

 

“You mean like you do. All the time,” Hunter jokes, shooting his friend a cheeky smile. Fitz rolls his eyes.

 

“I’m her best friend. I don’t _have_ to look like an idiot to make her laugh—“

 

“Ah right, you just do it by choice then,” Hunter adds.

 

“Oi! Whose side are you on?!”

 

“The side of true love, of course,” Hunter responds. “You know she’s crazy about you, Fitz. Don’t get all up in your own head about it.”

 

Fitz glowers at one of the cars, refusing to meet his best friend’s eyes. “I dunno. I think she’s just about fed up with this whole thing.”

 

Hunter rolls his eyes. “I’m not saying that any of this has been easy, but she’s not just going to give up on you because your life is a mess.”

 

Fitz leans against the tool bench and crosses his arms haughtily. “Is that why you haven’t told Bobbi about your mum then?”

 

A glint of darkness settles in Hunter’s expression. “That’s completely different. Your mum’s a _dying saint_ and my mum is a horrendous piece of work.”

 

“I’m just saying,” Fitz advises. “You seem to really like this girl. Bobbi is a great person and despite what I think you think, she’s not too good for you. But she’s smart and she’s going to catch on eventually.”

 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” Hunter grumbles. “So is Jemma all that’s bothering you?”

 

Fitz licks his lips, shaking his head. “Mum’s next treatment is going to be an extra thousand on top of the three grand we already knew we needed.”

 

“Fuck,” Hunter curses. “That’s not exactly pocket change.”

 

“No, it isn’t.”

 

Fitz finally really looks at Hunter. His brow furrows and he moves closer to get a better look at his arm. “Hunter, is that—“

 

“I’m fine,” Hunter says quickly. He unrolls the sleeves of his flannel, letting them reach his wrists. “I’ll get another tattoo.”

 

Fitz resists the urge to scoff. “You can’t just keep getting tattoos to cover up your scars.”

 

“Sure I can,” Hunter quips. “I’ve got plenty of skin.”

 

“Eventually you’ll run out. That looked infected,” Fitz warns.

 

Hunter clenches his jaw and scratches at one eyebrow. “Yeah, well. I’ll get it cleaned and get some stitches.”

 

“Where?” Fitz challenges. “I know you won’t actually—“

 

“I’m meeting Simmons tonight, alright?” Hunter sighs. “And before you get all twisted up about it, I texted her after it happened. She said she’d help me with this sort of shit.”

 

As much as Fitz wants to say something—and he truly does want to ask more about this strange, burgeoning friendship between his two best friends—he squashes the urge. Hunter is hurt, yet again, and if Jemma can help him, then he can’t get jealous about that. He’s made a big enough fool of himself for one day.

 

“If we need a thousand more, we need to go bigger,” Hunter says after several minutes of silence. “Just…leave it to me, okay? You three don’t need to get involved in anything bigger than cars.”

 

“You know the rules. We all do everything together,” Fitz argues. “Don’t get stubborn now, alright?”

 

Hunter holds his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, fine. You’re right. Just not used to being a team player, that’s all.”

 

“Mum wants you over for dinner,” Fitz informs him.

 

“Whatcha making?”

 

“Frozen pizza and salad out of a bag,” Fitz laughs. Hunter snorts and claps him on the back.

 

“I’ll see you there. I’ll head over to Jemma’s now then. Maybe I’ll catch a peak at this New You.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“No really, want me to rough him up for you? Sounds like a real pretty boy…”

 

Fitz ignores his friend, choosing to focus on the map that Bobbi made for him. It’s all of the wealthiest neighborhoods, along with some general information about security. They do need to go bigger and he knows it. The slice on Hunter’s forearm tells him that the extra $500 from the Mercedes hadn’t been enough to keep the Hunters’ accounts at a break even.

 

Sighing, he gets back to work.

 

***

 

Jemma dashes out of her building and slips into the front seat of Hunter’s car of the day, a 1970s Chevelle.

 

“You change your car more than you change your clothes,” she teases as she pulls out a first aid kit from her purse.

 

Hunter worries his lip between his teeth. “Did Bob see you leave?”

 

“No, she’s not home,” Jemma tells him. “You probably could have come in, but I’m not sure when she’ll be home from her group meeting.”

 

“Oh right, the reform project,” Hunter muses aloud. Jemma bites back a smile at the way he knows Bobbi’s school project.

 

“That’s the one. Show me your arm, then.”

 

He grimaces, rolling up the sleeve of his right arm. Jemma gasps when he reveals the wound, about a quarter inch deep and poorly stitched together with what appears to be dental floss.

 

“Hunter!” Jemma exclaims. “Did you do this yourself?”

 

“Of course I did,” he hisses as she pokes at it. “I was in a bit of a bind.”

 

“Well, this is going to hurt,” she warns. “I’m going to have to remove whatever the hell this is—“

 

“Floss.”

 

“I thought so,” she huffs. “Then I’ll need to clean the wound and stitch it up again.”

 

“As long as I’m at Fitz’s for dinner, do whatever you please to me,” Hunter says, trying for a flirty little grin and failing as his face contorts from the pain. She rolls her eyes at his valiant attempt and tries to distract him with conversation.

 

“So, you’re having dinner with Fitz and his mum?”

 

“Yep,” Hunter answers. “I’m sure Fitz is going to tell you and Bobbi soon, but we need to come up with another thousand for his mum’s next treatment.”

 

“Shit,” Jemma mumbles. “Well that’s just great, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Hunter agrees. “Not to mention the money I need to come up with to keep this from happening again.”

 

“What was it? If you don’t mind my asking?”

 

“They repossessed her car, of all fucking things,” Hunter laughs humorlessly. “We keep it at the back of the house. It’s been ages since she’s even driven the damn thing. The one car in this town that I don’t steal, and it gets stolen from _us._ So she got piss drunk and came at me with a knife because I fell behind on the payments.”

 

“Hunter, if you had told us—“

 

“I don’t want Bobbi to know,” he repeats harshly. “Bobbi is…you’ve been to her house. You’ve seen her world. She doesn’t belong in mine. She deserves better than mine.”

 

“I think it’s up to Bobbi to decide what she deserves,” Jemma says sagely. “If you won’t go to Bobbi with it, then you, me, and Fitz can figure something out.”

 

“Fitz is pretty strict on his rules,” Hunter says. “I told him I wanted to do a bigger job on my own and he said no. I don’t want to involve Bobbi and if Fitz won’t let me exclude her, well then—“

 

“I’ll do it,” Jemma offers as she pulls another stitch tightly. He looks up at her in surprise.

 

“Jemma Simmons, breaking the rules?”

 

“If I’m breaking actual laws, then I think a pact between friends can be bent a little bit,” Jemma smirks. “I don’t want to see you like this anymore. I understand that Fitz is trying to be honorable but we should be going as big as we can. The bigger we go, the less jobs we actually have to _do.”_

“There’s a bigger risk of getting caught.”

 

“Not with me on your team,” Jemma says. “I can eliminate all evidence of our DNA from any scene. And of course I have prototypes of Fitz’s. What did you have in mind?”

 

“Jewelry store,” he tells her. “The one in Providence.”

 

“I’m in,” Jemma says immediately.

 

“Simmons, you should really think about this.”

 

“No,” Jemma insists. “Fitz needs another thousand, you obviously need a lot more than what you’ve been getting. We’re getting nowhere fast. We’ve stolen _one_ car, and we’ve barely made a dent in what we needed.”

 

Hunter understands her impatience, sees the way that it’s pushing on her bones. He knows the feeling well, and he impulsively reaches over to squeeze her leg.

 

“Thanks, Simmons. For…everything.”

 

“Of course,” Jemma smiles softly. “Like I said, anytime. And I really will keep your secret, but please consider talking to her about this. She would just want to be there for you.”

 

“I know she would,” Hunter says, looking away. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

 

Jemma doesn’t push the issue, packing up her little kit in silence. “You need to keep that clean. I’ll remove the stitches in a week or so.”

 

He nods in understanding and she slips out of the car. As soon as she reaches the front door of her building, she collides with Bobbi. “Oh!”

 

“Was that Hunter’s car?” Bobbi asks, staring after the disappearing taillgihts of the Chevelle.

 

“Hm?” Jemma asks. “Oh, I’m not sure. You know how he is. He’s always driving something new.”

 

“Why is there blood on your hands?” Bobbi demands. She grabs onto Jemma’s wrists and yanks them under the light. “Jesus Christ, Jemma.”

 

“It’s not mine,” Jemma rushes to say. “A uh…someone fell. On the sidewalk. I was just helping.”

 

Bobbi looks at her cautiously and Jemma feels a lead weight of guilt in her gut. Her roommate looks away and unlocks the front door in silence, hardly even holding it open for her.

 

“Bobbi…”

 

“I know that was Hunter’s car,” Bobbi says quietly. She keeps her tone even and calm, which somehow makes her all the more intimidating as they step into the elevator. “And I know that’s his blood.”

 

“I don’t want to lie to you.”

 

“But you still are,” Bobbi points out. Jemma feels a lump building in her throat and she swallows it painfully. “You dragged me into this and now you won’t even be honest with me.”

 

“It has nothing to do with what we’re doing,” Jemma insists, right on Bobbi’s heels as the blonde enters their apartment. “I can at least promise you that.”

 

Bobbi snorts. “Right, like that makes me feel better.”

 

“Please, Bobbi. If I could tell you I would, but I made a promise.”

 

Bobbi turns away, throwing her bag on the floor of the living room and stalking toward her bedroom. “Whatever, Jemma. Fitz wanted me to tell you that we should all meet at the Warehouse tomorrow night anyway. He said 7:00.”

 

Bobbi’s door slams shut and Jemma stares at it for a long moment. She stares down at her blood-stained hands and shivers, making her way to the bathroom to clean up. Her guilt over hiding Hunter’s secret is only intensified by the fact that she’s agreed to help Hunter with an unauthorized job.

 

Once her hands are dry, Jemma pulls out her phone and stares at the background, a goofy photo of herself and Fitz in the lab. It brings a soft smile to her lips and bolsters her resolve once again.

 

She’s doing this for him and the future that he deserves to have. It’ll be worth it. She just knows it.


	5. you give love a bad name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma and Hunter go rogue and their solo job goes sideways, inciting the anger of both Bobbi and Fitz.

When Jemma wakes the next morning, she feels an instant sense of dread settle in her chest. Her fight with Bobbi lingers in the air; it’s as though the tension didn’t go to sleep when they did. Her phone vibrates on her bedside table and she groans, snatching it and tugging the power cord out of the wall. Sighing, she rolls onto her back and holds it above her face.

 

_[Hunter]: Skye’s at 2. Don’t be late._

A brief flicker of doubt crosses her mind. Bobbi made some valid points last night, and she can’t help but wonder if she’s the kind of person who only follows the rules when they’re convenient for her. She’s never been a very good liar, and lying to Bobbi about Hunter leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

 

Sighing heavily, she types out her response to Hunter.

 

_[Jemma]: I’ll be there_

It still doesn’t feel right, but it’s not as if _anything_ actually feels right, these days. There’s no avoiding the complete and utter wrongness of everything that’s been going on. If they pull this off, they could maybe even stop all of this madness altogether. A giant lump sum of well-hidden cash could mean no worries for Fitz’s mum or for Hunter.

 

The thought bolsters her confidence that she’s making the right decision, and she rolls out of bed to make herself some breakfast in the kitchen. She tiptoes out, peeking at Bobbi’s door with growing anxiety. A post-it note sticks out against the deep blue wood of her bedroom door.

 

_J,_

_Went for a run and then going out for the day. See you at Fitz’s._

  * _B_



It’s not incredibly friendly, but the fact that Bobbi left a note at all does something to assuage the panic she’d felt last night after their fight. Aside from Fitz, Bobbi has been Jemma’s only real friend since childhood. It’s not something she ever wants to damage, but she also can’t betray Hunter’s confidence. While her loyalty ultimately lies with Bobbi, Hunter’s issues with his mother are ultimately his to disclose. She’s sure she wouldn’t even know about it if she hadn’t insisted on hiding in his bathroom in an embarrassing jealous rage.

 

“You’re doing the right thing,” she tells herself firmly as she fills the electric kettle with water. “She’ll understand. He’ll tell her eventually and Bobbi of all people will get it.”

 

She makes her breakfast and sits down at the counter to work on homework, but finds herself too antsy to focus on anything for longer than a few minutes at a time. Jemma eventually gives up on studying pathology and moves on to deep-cleaning the apartment. By the time she’s finished scrubbing the shower spotless, it’s time to get ready to meet Hunter at Skye’s.

 

She stands in front of her open closet, staring blankly at the neatly hung blouses. What does one ordinarily wear to a criminal plotting session? Not to mention—what does one wear to rob a jewelry store?

 

Her only knowledge of robberies comes from movies and cartoons, so she settles for a black long-sleeve shirt with a high neck. Never one for sports, she doesn’t exactly have a ski mask, but she grabs a thin black bandana out of her closet. She’d bought it the year before, when she and Bobbi had dressed as bandits for Halloween.

 

The irony of it doesn’t escape her and she snorts as she shoves it into her purse and grabs the keys to her Mini. Skye doesn’t even really live far enough away that driving is required, but she’s not sure what the protocol is for this little mission with Hunter. Does she drive? Does he drive, since he’s the one who invited her to commit robbery? Do they each drive separately, like going Dutch on a date?

 

Shaking herself, she skips down the stairs of her building with a nervous fluttering building in her gut. She slips into her car and puts on the playlist she’d agonized over last night when she couldn’t sleep.

 

_Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well_

It’s ridiculous and it’s not even like her, but she needs to pump herself up. She needs to somehow reach a mental state that will allow her to believe that she’s the kind of person who can rob a jewelry store. She needs to overcome the two decades of moral conditioning and values that she’s always held close to her heart.

 

By the time she reaches Skye’s apartment, she immediately recognizes the bike parked out front. It’s Hunter’s motorbike, beat up and slightly rusted. With shaking hands, she buzzes herself in to Skye’s building and makes her way to the hacker’s apartment. Hunter swings the door open as soon as she reaches it and ushers her in.

 

“So you guys need me to cut the power at the jewelry store in Providence?” Skye says immediately. Jemma wonders if Skye ever actually leaves her little enclave of computers. Every time she’s seen the other girl, she’s been surrounded on all sides by screens.

 

Jemma looks nervously to Hunter who nods. “She knows what we’re up to.”

 

“You can’t tell Bobbi or Fitz.”

 

Skye shrugs. “I mean, I’m sure they’re going to be a little curious where you two came up with a buncha G’s, but that’s your question to deal with. I’m just here to provide by services.”

 

She wiggles her fingers enticingly and Jemma can’t help but laugh lightly. Skye has the kind of personality that, try as she might, Jemma can’t seem to dislike.

 

“What _are_ we going to tell them?” Jemma asks nervously.

 

“The truth,” Hunter shrugs nonchalantly, kicking his feet up on Skye’s desk. She huffs and shoves his feet off. “After it’s successful and all is said and done, they can’t be that mad, can they? We’ll have saved the day and no one will have gotten their hands dirty.”

 

“Except for us,” Jemma points out. He scoffs and points at the bag at her feet.

 

“Really? Because I was assured by you that there will be, and I quote, absolutely no DNA evidence of our presence at the shop.”

 

“You’re right,” she assures him. “There truly won’t be. But do you really think that Bobbi and Fitz aren’t going to be angry?”

 

“Of course they’ll be angry, love,” Hunter reasons. “But once they’ve had a chance to cool down and understand that we’ve solved a big problem, the grudge will be dropped. I’ve known Fitz a lot longer than you. Trust me, he lets things go when there’s a rational explanation.”

 

“And I’ve known Bobbi much longer than you have,” Jemma warns. “She’s not really one to let go of anger, especially if she feels like she’s been betrayed. We had it out last night, her and I—“

 

“You did?” Hunter asks worriedly. Skye barks out a disbelieving laugh.

 

“Oh my God,” she says. “Is Lance Hunter actually worried about another human being? One that he’s sleeping with?”

 

“Shut up,” he snaps. “What did you fight about?”

 

“She knew I was with you,” Jemma tells him, sinking into Skye’s messy couch. “And she realized the blood was yours. She’s upset that I’m hiding something from her.”

 

Hunter looks between Skye and Jemma nervously, shaking his head with finality. “Alright. Whatever. Let the bird be ticked off—“

 

“You don’t seem like you want her to be upset,” Skye jumps in teasingly. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you actually care about this girl.”

 

“He’d better,” Jemma interjects. “You may be tougher than me, Hunter, but I know about a hundred different ways to poison someone and they will _never_ find out who did it.”

 

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Alright, Batman. Enough with the vigilante justice, huh? You know how I…think of Bobbi. She’s not just some bird.”

 

Jemma studies him carefully before nodding her assent. “Yes. Yes I do. Let's get back to the issue at hand here. When are we going to the store?”

 

“Yeah, what time am I killing the feeds and power?”

 

Hunter screws his face up in thought. “Just past five. Let’s say…seven past.”

 

“How specific,” Skye says wryly. “But yeah, I can make it happen.”

 

“Why 5:07?” Jemma questions anxiously. “Some shops are still open, and it’ll still be light outside.”

 

“We’re killing power,” Hunter reminds her. “Being able to actually see during a robbery is quite essential.”

 

“But what about—“

 

“The shop closes at 5:00,” he tells her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “The shopkeeper ought to be gone by then. We’ll do our business and get out. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy being late to our meet up at the Warehouse.”

 

Jemma considers this carefully before making a small noise of agreement. “Alright. I’ll…trust your judgment on this one.”

 

“That’s gotta be the first time anyone has ever said that about Hunter,” Skye jokes. “So, are you two going to hang out here and plan? Because I think I already know too much. In case you forgot, my parents are both attorneys and I know a thing or two about accomplice liability.”

 

Jemma smiles kindly. “Of course. We’ll get out of your hair. Thank you for your—“

 

“Do not say help,” Skye grins. “Just a thank you is good. See you two around, yeah?”

 

They bid their goodbyes to Skye and make their way outside. Jemma worries her bottom lip between her teeth as they linger beside her Mini. “It’s rather distinct, isn’t it?”

 

Hunter nods. “Yeah, that’s why we’re taking my bike. This one has false plates, and helmets are a great way to hide your face in a get-away.”

 

Jemma rocks nervously on her feet. “I’ve never been on a bike except with—“

 

“Fitz, yeah,” Hunter finishes with a roll of his eyes. “And I’m sure he drives perfectly safely with you on the back, but I’ll have you know he rides just as fast as I do when you’re not around. If you want to get away with this—“

 

“—which I do—“

 

“Then we’re taking the bike,” Hunter says with finality. He tosses her a helmet. “Let’s get going. We’ll finish our plans at Mack’s and then head over.”

 

With a shaking breath, Jemma tugs the helmet tightly over her head, lowering the visor. Her hands tremble as she struggles with the chinstrap. Hunter takes pity on her, adjusting it for her. He straddles the bike and she slips on behind him, nervously clutching at the sides of his jacket. It’s nothing like the way she comfortably wraps herself around Fitz on the few occasions they’ve ridden his bike somewhere.

 

Then the engine roars to life, and she squeaks loudly, clutching onto him for dear life and screwing her eyes shut. Not for the first time, she wonders what the hell she’s gotten herself into.

 

***

 

“All right, Jemma,” Hunter tells her solemnly. “You can do this. Just follow my lead. Stay behind me. Everyone should be clocked out already. The last clerk just walked out.”

 

Her mouth goes completely dry as she ties the black bandana around the bottom half of her face, making sure to keep her hair down and not tucked into the covering. Her eyebrows, beautiful as they may be, are quite a distinctive feature. Skye is cutting the cameras, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t spot them on the street.

 

She adjusts the Night Night Gun located at her hip and takes several calming breaths. She triple-checks the devices in her utility belt—complete finger print removal, the small metal pod that will use a high powered vacuum to suck up any hair particles after their departure, and a pair of gloves that completely block human body heat.

 

Her heart clenches painfully with anxiety as Hunter attaches Fitz’s lock-picking device to the back entrance of the jewelry shop. With a satisfying clunk, the door swings open and he pockets the device. Jemma sprays it down thoroughly to make sure his prints can’t possibly be found and then follows behind him.

 

They make their way into the back, toward the safe. They’re not here for gems or diamonds—all they want is the cold hard cash.

 

“Do you have it?” Jemma whispers anxiously.

 

“Nicked it from Fitz last night,” Hunter whispers back. This device is different from the lock-picker—a small circle, almost rubber-like, that folds out into a much larger ring. Hunter sticks it around the dial on the safe and then pushes two buttons on either side of the ring.

 

It contracts, releasing a high-powered freezing agent within the metal door to destroy the locking mechanisms inside. Jemma gasps excitedly; she can’t believe how easy this has been.

 

“You know,” Jemma whispers gleefully to Hunter as he begins stuffing stacks of bills into his backpack. “I don’t know how so many criminals get caught.”

 

“Because, Doogie Howser,” Hunter grins over his shoulder, “most criminals don’t have genius-level IQs.”

 

“I believe only one of us has that,” she teases, keeping lookout.

 

“Well all a criminal needs is a _sidekick_ with a genius IQ.”

 

“Hey!” she hisses indignantly. “I’m not the sidekick. If anything I’m the mastermind.”

 

“The mastermind?” Hunter scoffs. “I don’t think so, teaspoon.”

 

“Teaspoon?” Jemma repeats, unimpressed. “Whatever, teacup.”

 

He looks up at her with a little grin, pointing a finger at her in warning. “See, you stole my thing. Sidekick.”

 

Jemma is so distracted by her giddy banter with Hunter that she completely forgets to keep on the lookout until there are footsteps thundering toward them.

 

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

 

“Fuck,” Hunter curses, He throws one strap of the backpack over his shoulder and draws his gun from the back of his jeans, holding it out in front of him with steady hands. “Jemma, get behind me.”

 

She does as she’s told, scrambling to hide behind him as the man rounds the corner. The safety on the ICER gets stuck, the trigger of Hunter’s gun clicking uselessly beneath his index finger. A shot rings out and Hunter shouts loudly, grabbing at his arm in pain.

 

Jemma doesn’t even think. She grabs her own gun from her hip and fires several times, hitting the man twice in the chest. He drops to the floor, the telltale blue tendrils of the neurotoxin spreading on his face around his eyes.

 

“We need to get out of here,” Hunter gasps out through gritted teeth. Jemma sees blood seeping through his fingers and nods, keeping her ICER drawn as they make the mad dash out of the back of the building. She pauses long enough to spray the door handle she’d used to make her great escape. Jemma squishes the helmet on her head, doing up Hunter’s for him. He starts up the bike with a loud growl of pain and Jemma hugs Hunter around the back with the backpack of cash in between them.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” Jemma shouts over the sound of the bike.

 

“Not exactly!” he shouts back. “But we need to get far enough away before you can check it out.”

 

She nods against his non-injured shoulder and lets him focus instead on driving as quickly as he can down the mostly-abandoned highway. The gravity of what she’s done trickles over her like an unexpected rainstorm. She’s shot a gun at an actual human being—successfully striking him _two times in the chest._

And sure, maybe it was just a gun that would knock him out, but her throat tightens anyway, tears burning in her eyes. She’d acted without thinking, fired the weapon solely out of anger. Solely out of a primal urge to protect her friend, even though they were the ones who were wrong. They were the ones stealing cash out of a jewelry store safe.

 

A tear leaks down onto her cheek and she tries in vain to swipe it from her cheek, her hand blocked by the protective shield on the motorcycle helmet that she wears. Suddenly the bandana around her mouth, coupled by the helmet, feels incredibly suffocating.

 

Hunter eventually veers off of the highway and into a wooded area, skidding the bike to a halt and practically shoving both of them off of it. As soon as he does, he rips his helmet off and shouts out loud, clutching at his shoulder.

 

“FUCKING CHRIST IN HELL!”

 

“Shhh!” Jemma hushes. She ushers him over to a fallen log as soon as they rip off their respective headgear. “You need to breathe, alright. And stay quiet.”

 

She straddles the log, unzipping the backpack on him as she gently tugs it off. He groans in pain and she shushes him again, wincing at her own lack of sympathy. She yanks out a first aid kit she’d stashed at the bottom of the backpack, cutting open his black t-shirt and getting to work.

 

As soon as she looks at him, she sighs in relief. “Oh, Hunter, thank god. It went all the way through.”

 

“Ah yeah,” Hunter grunts sarcastically. “Just fantastic. Gotta love a through-and-through.”

 

“It’s better than me having to dig a bullet out of your arm,” Jemma tells him rather harshly. “Not that I would know where to even _begin_ with doing that.”

 

“Do you know where to begin with this?” Hunter pants, eyes shut with pain. Sweat beads on his forehead and Jemma reaches up her wrist to wipe it away. Her annoyance with him crumbles into genuine concern and she turns on her best would-be patient voice. She’s never had a particularly good bedside manner—which is why she’d opted for a laboratory career instead of a medical one.

 

“Sort of,” Jemma grimaces. “I—well, I think the wound should be irrigated. Do you have—something we can give you for pain?”

 

“Do you think I’m a drug dealer?” he asks her seriously. “Cause that’s a bit offensive. I mean, I know I’m a criminal and everything—“

 

“Hunter, shut up,” Jemma snaps. “I meant whiskey or—“

 

“Oh, of course I have whiskey.”

 

He gives her a rakish little grin and she rustles around in the backpack until she finds a flask. She unscrews it and lifts it his lips, letting him chug it. Sure, medicine has advanced significantly since the Civil War and maybe giving a bleeding man alcohol isn’t her _best_ choice but she’s also robbed a jewelry store and shot a man twice in the chest and she’s _not a fucking doctor._

 

“I read about this. I _just_ read about it. Think, Simmons,” she mumbles bitterly to herself.

  
“Why the hell were you just reading about this?!”

 

“I EXCEL AT PREPARATION!” Jemma shrieks at him. He winces and she gathers herself, letting out a long breath and squaring her shoulders. “The wound is to your shoulder. The key is bracing it. I’m going to have to drive back.”

 

“No way!”

 

She levels him with a look. “If you want to retain full movement of your right arm, I’d suggest you listen to me.”

 

He nods sheepishly and Jemma gets to work. She irrigates the wound as Hunter clenches onto the side of her shirt, gritting his teeth through the pain. Then she applies pressure with gauze, wrapping the wound and pulling out the small universal sling from the bottom of the first aid kit.

 

“Okay,” she sighs. “Alright. You need stitches, I think, but honestly Hunter, we’ve got to get you to a real doctor.”

 

He shakes his head adamantly. “You know that whole no-health-insurance thing that Fitz’s mum’s got going on? Yeah, I have that same problem.”

 

“Hunter—“

 

“The last thing I need is more debt. Stitch me now, Simmons.”

 

“I don’t even know if I can!”

 

“Hey, Simmons,” Hunter says seriously. She looks into his eyes, finding them slightly wild and watery. “I need you to just do your best, alright? You’ve gotten me this far. I know you can do this.”

 

She sucks in a shaking breath, putting her trembling fingers on his pulse point and quieting him with her other hand when he opens his mouth to speak. Her lips move as she counts, watching her digital watch. “Okay, your pulse is good. Do you feel dizzy?”

 

“A little.”

 

“Do you know where you are?”

 

“In the woods with you,” he says cheekily. She debates slapping him and decides against it. She examines the wound carefully.

 

“No obvious signs of rapid swelling or internal bleeding. I think we got really lucky here. “I don’t think we should do stitches. Most gunshot wounds can be dirty. I cleaned it—but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods in terms of infection.”

 

“So what, we just leave a hole in my bloody arm?!”

 

Jemma nods decisively. “With what we have available and my limited knowledge, I think we need to do some research and make sure before I go stitching anything shut. You can’t lose an arm over my incompetence.”

 

Hunter snorts. “You’re a lot of things, Simmy, but you’re sure as hell not incompetent. Good shot back there, by the way.”

 

Her stomach rolls but she nods anyway, grabbing her helmet off of the ground. “It’s time to go. We’re already going to be late.”

 

“Showing up late with a bullet wound,” Hunter ponders. She can tell that his humor is a thin veneer to cover the pain he’s in, and she grabs the flask, offering him the rest.

 

“It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Jemma warns. “I’m not exactly experienced at this.”

 

“Have you ever ridden before?” he asks. Then he shakes himself, grimacing at the pain the movement causes him. “Nevermind. You know what, I don’t want to know.”

 

He’s probably right to not ask. Fitz had showed her the ropes—the very, very basics. She knows how to use the clutch and gears but not exactly smoothly, so the ride back to the warehouse is jolting and jerky. Hunter curses loudly, the backpack between them preventing him from holding on tightly with his one good arm.

 

When they finally pull up to the Warehouse, Jemma skids to a clumsy stop. It’s 20 past 7:00, and she knows that Bobbi and Fitz will be spitting mad when they get inside. She yanks off the helmet and tugs the backpack straps closer, touching them together in the middle of her chest. Hunter manages to undo his own helmet with his good hand. He rips it off and chucks it to the side, swaying slightly on his feet.

 

“Hunter!” Jemma exclaims. “Are you okay?”

 

“I think I’m a little drunk,” he assures her, putting his hand out. “It’s not the gunshot thing.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Gunshot thing?”

 

Bobbi’s voice is steely and cold, arms crossed over her chest, but Jemma knows better—in the dim light coming from the warehouse, she can see the worry in her best friend’s eyes as they land on Hunter’s shoulder, the gauze screaming out the truth of his injury.

 

“It’s alright,” Hunter says, but the assurance falls flat. His voice cracks slightly. Bobbi narrows her eyes and whirls on her heel, stalking into the warehouse. Hunter immediately sets off after her, completely disregarding his physical pain. “Bobbi, wait!”

 

“No, Hunter,” she huffs. Jemma races after both of them, sliding to a halt in front of a very angry looking Fitz. “I don’t want to hear it, okay? From either of you.”

 

“What’s in the backpack?” Fitz demands. He leans back against the tool bench, his knuckles white from the intensity of his grip on the surface. Jemma hesitates, her hands hovering at the straps.

 

“Now, Fitz, keep in mind that we were trying to help,” Jemma says in a near-whisper. “And we did. We did help. We got more than what we needed, really, and—“

 

“You robbed a jewelry store!” he interrupts. Jemma freezes, jaw dropping.

 

“Skye told you?” she gasps.

 

“Skye was involved?” he retorts, equally incredulous. “Skye is _my_ friend and you asked her to go behind my back?”

 

“Oi, she’s my friend too,” Hunter cuts in. Fitz turns to glare at him, chest heaving with pent up rage. “I asked her to help me.”

 

“What, after you asked Jemma to rob a fucking bank with you?” Fitz explodes. “You know what, I knew you were gonna break our rules, Hunter. That’s what you do. But I really thought you were better than getting Jemma involved in shit this big.”

 

“Hey—“ Hunter tries, but Fitz continues. Jemma stares between them like a tennis match, her throat tightening painfully. Fitz is one of the most important people in Hunter’s life and Jemma knows that. In fact, he’s probably _the_ most important person to Hunter, and Jemma can’t let them be torn apart because of her. Her brain recognizes this but her mouth won’t sync up with her thoughts. She stands there silently under Bobbi’s icy glare while the two boys shout at each other.

 

“And now what?! You’ve gone and gotten yourself shot!”

 

“You act like you’re Mr. Fucking Perfect!” Hunter yells back. His words slur slightly and Jemma isn’t positive if it’s from the gunshot wound or the whiskey; either way, she’s concerned. She meets Bobbi’s eyes just long enough to see that her best friend is worried, too. “As if you haven’t put her in a _shitty situation_ to begin with!”

 

Fitz stumbles back, as though Hunter has punched him in the gut. He clenches his jaw and his eyes wander to Hunter’s cut-up t-shirt and the gauze on his shoulder.

 

“You got shot,” Fitz says. His voice is lower now but no less fierce. If anything, Jemma feels her anxiety rise at his quieter tone. “What, Hunter? Bottles and cigarette burns and knives from your mum weren’t enough for you? You just had to be a fucking masochist?”

 

“Wait, what?” Bobbi jumps in. She steps in between them, holding a hand out toward Hunter. “Hunter, what is he talking about?”

 

Fitz deflates, the realization of what he’s just revealed settling over him. He’s never outed Hunter before, never told anybody about what his best friend endures. Only when the other person already knows—only his mum and Jemma.

 

“Nothing,” Hunter mumbles. He averts his eyes. “He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

 

“You’ve known each other nearly your entire lives,” Bobbi protests. “Is that what’s been going on? Is that why Jemma was covered in your blood?”

 

“You know what?” Hunter says, raising his head up to look at her. He licks his chapped lips and shakes his head. “It’s none of your goddamn business, Bob.”

 

And then he’s the one storming out of the warehouse. Bobbi watches him go for a beat, turning to face Fitz and Jemma. She looks between them both and then runs a hand over her hair.

 

“I’m not done with you,” she tells Jemma. Then she takes off out of the doors, calling for Hunter.

 

“Neither am I,” Fitz continues. “You shot the guy with an ICER Jemma. Now everyone is trying to figure out what the hell kind of weapon did that to a man.”

 

She grimaces, brow scrunching up as she reaches up to touch the left side of her face. “I didn’t even think of that.”

 

“You weren’t thinking at all!”

 

“No!” Jemma explodes. “No, I wasn’t! I wasn’t thinking when _I_ told Hunter that I wanted to help him! I wasn’t thinking when I lied to you and Bobbi about it, and I certainly wasn’t thinking when a man shot at me and Hunter with _real bullets_ and hit him! I didn’t think, I just shot back because I didn’t want Hunter to die. _I_ didn’t want to die!”

 

Fitz whirls on Jemma, his chest still heaving with his ragged breaths. She watches him carefully, unsure of what to do, but suddenly he surges forward and presses her up against the side of the car she’s standing near. His lips meet hers in a heated kiss, prying her mouth open and nipping at her bottom lip with his teeth.

 

She whines low in the back of her throat, letting the backpack full of cash fall to the ground. Hunter’s blood is still on her hands but she runs them up his arms and around his neck anyway, because she isn’t thinking of Hunter’s blood anymore. She’s not thinking at all anymore.

 

His lips move to her neck and she inhales sharply, fingernails dragging along his scalp as he moves her away from the car door and to the hood. His hands slide down to grab her thighs, lifting her onto the hood with a loud crash.

 

This seems to wake him up and he jerks back to stare at her, cheeks pink and lips swollen. His tongue darts out to lick them and she makes an embarrassing little noise, grabbing at his shirt to pull him back into her.

 

“Jemma, Jemma,” he whispers. “Wait, wait, wait.”

 

A sinking feeling of disappointment settles in her gut. “What, Fitz?”

 

“Is this—is this okay?”

 

She barks out a laugh. “Fitz, this is perfectly fine with me.”

 

“It’s just…you said you didn’t want to keep doing this if I couldn’t promise you anything. And the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you, Jemma, you have to know that.”

 

She looks into his eyes, dark blue and desperate, and she nods urgently. “I know. I know that.”

 

“Then why—“

 

“I could have died today,” she says, and she feels all of his muscles tense beneath her. She reels him back in by pulling him closer and dotting his face with kisses. “And the thing is, Fitz, I think I would rather do this with you then have a perfect relationship with anyone else in the world.”

 

He sighs, eyes fluttering shut under her attentions. “Really?”

 

“Really,” she confirms. “So—maybe we still have to work out a few kinks but please. Don’t stop until I say when, okay?”

 

He nods and dives back in to kiss her, crawling onto the car on top of her. Her toes curl in her boots and she eagerly works on the buttons of his flannel shirt, desperately trying to yank it off of him.

 

She needs to be closer, and she’s not sure what that means, but for right now, with her adrenaline pumping and everything crashing down around her, she thinks this might be enough.

 

She thinks it might have to be.

 

***

 

Bobbi catches up with him not far from the warehouse, trying to start his bike in vain.

 

“Stop it,” she warns him, jogging up to him and practically pulling him off of the bike. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

 

“Agh,” he groans. “Yeah well you just did that on your own, thanks.”

 

She crosses her arms over her chest, mostly out of nervousness. “Hunter, what Fitz said in there—“

 

“Doesn’t matter.”

 

“Of course it does!” Bobbi explodes. “Of course it matters, because _you_ matter and if you’re getting hurt I—I want to _do_ something about it.”

 

He looks up at her with a bitter half-smile. “See, Bob. This is why I didn’t want you to know.”

 

She swallows hard and tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

 

“Look at you,” he breathes, eyes grazing over her. She looks down at herself—a pair of black designer jeans, some Doc Marten boots purchased from a department store, and a white tank top with a denim vest over it. Every single item on her body was purchased, full-price, from some mall or other.

 

“I don’t care about money.”

 

He chews on his lip. “You think that now. You’re a senior in college, you have—“

 

“I’m a senior in college,” she repeats. “I know what I want. I know what matters to me.”

 

“Money doesn’t matter to you because you’ve always had it,” Hunter says. A veil of silence falls over them for a long moment. Bobbi leans back against one of the trees that surround the Warehouse.

 

“I didn’t,” she admits. She toes at the dirt with one of her boots. “My dad—my biological dad. He was kind of a piece of shit, to be honest. Wasn’t great to my mom, wasn’t great to me. We finally split when I was like—I don’t know, eight? Nine? I haven’t seen or heard from him since. But we moved out to Providence from San Diego, got a one bedroom apartment, tried to start over.”

 

“Tried?”

 

“I guess we did,” Bobbi shrugs. “Or—Mom did. She met Robert, my step-dad. And I just wanted to impress him so badly. I wanted him to love me. I was scared that the house, the clothes, the dolls—I was afraid they would disappear if I wasn’t exactly who he wanted me to be.”

 

“And who’s that?”

 

“An investigator,” Bobbi answers easily. She looks up to stare at him. “Hunter, I know now that it probably wouldn’t have just disappeared, if I’d been honest. But all of this has me re-thinking everything I thought I knew about who the bad guys are. I’m starting to think that maybe there are no bad guys.”

 

“Hey now,” Hunter chuckles. “Don’t get mixed up now. There are definitely some bad guys.”

 

“Are you one of them?” Bobbi challenges. A muscle in his jaw twitches but he forces himself to keep her gaze.

 

“I’m certainly not one of the good ones.”

 

She approaches him slowly, unfurling the clenched fist on his good arm and tracing his tattoos in the dim moonlight. She feels the scars and marks littering his skin, beneath the ink, and looks up at him.

 

“These are all a cover, huh?”

 

“A lot of things are a cover,” he admits hoarsely. Bobbi presses a soft kiss to his lips, and then another.

 

“Please don’t ask my best friend to lie to me,” Bobbi whispers when she pulls away. “And get that checked out by an actual doctor. Someone, anyone.”

 

He nods, bumping his forehead against hers and shutting his eyes. “I feel like shit.”

 

“I’m sure you do,” she says, half-gentle and half-chastising. “Stay on one of the cots here tonight, take some Tylenol, try to sleep.”

 

“Tylenol?” he practically gasps. Bobbi rolls her eyes.

 

“Whatever, Hunter, smoke a joint. I don’t really care. Just take care of yourself in whatever fucked up way you want to do that.”

 

Then she turns and starts walking toward her car, digging her keys out of the pocket of her vest.

 

“Hey, Bobbi!” Hunter shouts out. “Where are you going?”

 

She turns to look at him over her shoulder, hair blowing in the evening wind. “I’m going home Hunter. I’m—tired. I’m just really, really tired.”

 

And he knows she doesn’t just mean that she’s physically tired, she means that she’s tired of all of this. She’s tired of his shit and she’s tired of Jemma lying to her face. She’s tired of Fitz being hot and cold, up and down and sideways. She’s tired of pursuing a career she doesn’t love. She’s tired of being the girl in the department store clothes, mistaken as naïve.

 

He knows she really means she’s tired about all of that, and if he could just get his mouth to work he would tell her that he’s tired too. He’s tired of his shit. He’s tired of his mother and he’s tired of Brenda Fitz withering away. He’s tired of getting beaten up and not being able to hit back. He’s tired of the growing divide between him and his best friend. He’s tired of asking Jemma to lie to her. He’s tired of losing people.

 

He is so, so tired of losing people.

 

But he doesn’t tell her that, so Bobbi unlocks her car and slides into the driver’s seat without looking back again. The engine hums and she drives off into the night. He watches her taillights until he can’t see them anymore.

 

He’s tired of losing people but he feels sure that he’s just lost another one. He feels sure that maybe just lost the most important one of them all.

 

The pain in his shoulder can’t be ignored anymore. It rips through him and burns with every breath and movement, and he’s pretty sure that he’s losing more blood by the second.

 

There’s a huge stack of cash in that backpack and even though it makes him sick to have to use some of it for _this,_ for his idiot move in getting the cash to begin with, he decides that he has to. He’s in pain and he’s truly and honestly scared.

 

Hunter doesn’t scare easy or often, but he’d been genuinely scared today. First when that man had rounded the corner and pointed the gun at him and Jemma. He’d been terrified that Jemma was going to get hurt and that it would be entirely his fault.

 

And then, of course, he’d been the one to take the bullet. That hadn’t been so scary. It all happened so fast there wasn’t much time, and he was half-delirious by the time Jemma had patched him up.

 

But that fight with Bobbi had scared him. Sure, she’d kissed him, but it tasted like goodbye and even though he’d fleetingly felt closer to her than ever, she’d left anyway. She’d told him to take care of himself and she’d left.

 

A small part of him had secretly been hoping that he’d wake up to Bobbi running her hands through his hair, murmuring comforting words. The larger, stubborn part of him decides that he won’t let her be proven right—at least not in every possible way.

 

So he storms into the Warehouse and finds Fitz on top of Jemma. He coughs loudly and they spring apart. Fitz tugs his shirt mostly back on, all of the buttons un-done, and Hunter kneels down to grab a few hundreds out of the backpack.

 

“I need to go pay someone a visit,” he explains, avoiding Fitz’s eyes. “I need something for this shoulder. I…I don’t think I can…”

 

Fitz doesn’t let him finish the sentence. He knows that what comes next is too hard, that forcing Hunter to say the words _I don’t think I can take the pain_ are asking too much. No matter how angry he is with him, Hunter is the closest thing to a brother Fitz has ever had and he’d nearly lost him today.

 

He walks up and snatches the hundreds out of Hunter’s hand. “Raina?” he asks gruffly. Hunter nods in response and Fitz stuffs the bills into his back pocket, buttoning up on his way out the door.

 

“Fitz?” Jemma calls out. Her hair is in complete disarray, eyes glazed over. If he didn’t feel like he would vomit all over her, Hunter would certainly tease her about his friend’s capabilities.

 

“I’ll be back,” he calls over his shoulder. “Just…wait for me, okay? Watch him. Please.”

 

So she does. She lays Hunter down and then washes her hands before returning to run her fingers through his hair comfortingly. He finally whimpers, clenching his eyes shut.

 

“Jemma, I can’t…”

 

“Shh, it’s alright,” she soothes. “It’ll be okay. He’ll be back soon with…whatever it is he was getting.”

 

“Morphine,” Hunter gasps. “Raina. She sells morphine.”

 

“Lovely,” Jemma mutters under her breath. “Sounds like a really great girl.”

 

Hunter snorts. “She’s the devil.”

 

“Hey,” Jemma chides him half-heartedly. “You can’t go using your pet name for Bobbi on other girls now.”

 

She’s trying to cheer him up, lighten the mood somehow, but her face falls when she realizes what she’s said. She has no idea what happened between him and Bobbi outside, but he’d returned without her.

 

“Bob? She’s clever as the devil and twice as pretty,” he says fondly. Jemma smiles weakly.

 

“She cares about you,” Jemma tells him softly. “It takes a lot for her to care.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“I know.”

 

They spend the rest of the time in silence until Fitz returns with a bottle of pills, locking the Warehouse doors behind him with a heavy screech. Hunter takes one and lies back, waiting for it to kick in. On an empty stomach, it only takes about thirty minutes before his whimpering stops, the muscles in his face going slack.

 

Fitz looks over at Jemma from the other side of the cot and nods to the other side of the Warehouse. She stands and takes his hand, following him to one of the old-school trucks. He holds up a hand and disappears for several minutes, returning with an armful of old duvets and quilts that look exactly like something his mother would buy. Jemma smiles as he lays them out in the truck bed, rolling up two of them to serve as pillows.

 

It’s not exactly the plushest spot she’s ever slept in, but it’ll do. He rolls toward her with his arm tucked beneath his head and takes a deep breath.

 

“It’s been a long night,” Jemma says, cutting him off. She runs a hand over his cheek. “Let’s just…rest, okay? We can deal with the rest soon. But not now.”

 

He nods gratefully, eyes fluttering closed. As soon as his breathing evens out, Jemma crawls as quietly as she can out of the truck and tiptoes back over toward Hunter. She monitors him as he sleeps and, when he wakes up with a pained wheeze, hands him another pill and some water. She eases him back down and stays up by his bedside, in an uncomfortable folding chair.

 

She couldn’t sleep even if she wanted to. All she can hear is the discharge of a gun, over and over and over.


	6. have a little patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotions broil over on all fronts after Jemma and Hunter's botched jewelry store robbery. Bobbi explains her new plan to Hunter and Jemma for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! It's been ages. I really, really want to get this fic and my other WIP finished off soon, so hopefully updates on this will start coming more frequently. We're at the halfway point now!

When Jemma arrives home the next morning wearing her dirty black jeans and Fitz’s flannel shirt, Bobbi is waiting up for her like a disapproving parent. Somehow, this is significantly scarier than when Jemma’s actual parents had caught her in a similar situation when she was fifteen.

 

“Bobbi, let me explain.”

 

“That’s exactly what I plan on doing,” Bobbi shrugs from her place on the couch. The closer Jemma gets, the easier it is to see that her best friend hadn’t slept much more than she did last night. Bobbi looks pale, puffy circles beneath her eyes. She’s still in her baggy sweats, hair unbrushed.

 

“It was my idea,” Jemma blurts out. Bobbi sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose.

 

“Who _are_ you?” she eventually asks tiredly. Jemma blinks, stumbling back from the question.

 

“What?”

 

“I said, _who are you,”_ Bobbi repeats, “because I swear, I don’t recognize you at all anymore.”

 

“I did what I had to do.”

 

Bobbi barks out an incredulous laugh and stands. “What you had to do? Do you even hear yourself right now? If you and Hunter had just shown up on time and _not robbed a bank,_ I could have showed you my plan. And it’s a pretty damn good one, that probably wouldn’t have ended with Hunter getting shot.”

 

Bobbi’s voice cracks on the last three words and a sharp twinge of guilt shoots through Jemma. “I’m so sorry he got hurt.”

 

“He could have died,” Bobbi says quietly. “ _You_ could have died.”

 

“It was unbelievably stupid,” Jemma agrees. “I know that now.”

 

“You should have known it _then,”_ Bobbi says. She pauses for a beat, jaw clenching. “I’m worried about you.”

 

“I’m not the one who needs to be worried about,” Jemma replies. “Fitz and his mum and Hunter— _they_ need to be worried about.”

 

Bobbi falters for a moment. “Did he…um, did Hunter go see a doctor?”

 

She tries to act unaffected, but Jemma can see the crack in her careful veneer. She tries to think of how to delicately explain Hunter’s sketchy morphine dealer. “Something like that. His pain is being managed.”

 

Bobbi glares, immediately catching the entendre. “Oh good, just give him some illegal drugs and fix it. He needs an actual doctor, not—“

 

“I _tried_ ,” Jemma interrupts, rather sharply. “I tried after he got shot. He refused to go to a hospital. I am doing everything that I can.”

 

“Everything that you can sure as hell looks like fucking everything up,” Bobbi fires back. Jemma flinches, but Bobbi remains stone-faced.

 

“He really cares about you,” Jemma finally says, voice quiet. She looks away from her friend. “He needed you last night and you left.”

 

Bobbi shakes her head and turns away, an avoidance move of hers that Jemma knows well. “He doesn’t need me. Hunter doesn’t need anyone.”

 

“I think the only people who believe that are the two of you.”

 

“Look Jemma, it’s really none of your business, okay?” Bobbi snaps, whirling around once again. “You fucked up and he got hurt, and now I know things about him that he never wanted me to. It’s ruined.”

 

Jemma gulps. “It isn’t. It can’t be.”

 

“Well, then how come it is?” Bobbi demands, throwing her hands up. “I—I signed on for this because I thought we’d be a team, you and me. That even if they got out of control or started making bad decisions, you and I would keep everything in line. We’d keep it above board. But you just abandoned me.”

 

Jemma may have a penchant for arguing, but she knows that this is one that she can’t win. Bobbi is absolutely right; Jemma is the one who got her involved in this, only to start sneaking around behind her back and endangering the life of her sort-of-boyfriend. Not only had she dragged Bobbi into something illegal, she’d also meddled in places she didn’t belong.

 

All she can do is apologize, and so she tries again.

 

“Bobbi, I am so sorry,” Jemma manages. Her voice cracks and tears fill her eyes. She’s been holding back sobs ever since the gun shots were fired last night. She’d nearly let herself cry as she’d comforted Hunter all night through the pain, but she hadn’t wanted to wake Fitz. “All I’ve been doing is trying to help but I keep making things worse for everyone. I just—I—“

 

She is mortified by the loud sob that spills out of her, but there’s no containing it. The last thing she wants is for Bobbi to have to comfort her, but her friend moves across the room swiftly to tuck Jemma into her arms anyway.

 

“I think we’re in over our heads,” Bobbi says as she rests her cheek on top of Jemma’s hair. Still crying, Jemma nods.

 

When she finally calms down, Bobbi untangles herself from her roommate and turns on the kettle. “Have a seat and let me explain to you what I explained to Fitz. I think I have a better way to do this.”

 

Jemma nods gratefully and sinks onto one of the stools at their little breakfast bar. “I’m all ears.”

 

Bobbi launches into her presentation, explaining how Nick Fury Bourbon is rare—only about 200 bottles are released every year, and the small company uses allocation numbers to determine who gets them. Bobbi’s plan is that one of the four of them gets a job at the distillery where it’s made—an inside job of sorts. They can slowly steal it over the course of a month or so.

 

Bobbi’s research is extensive, and Jemma feels a brief flush of shame for having failed to approach this problem as systematically and logically as Bobbi has. It’s unlike her, to be out-prepared by her best friend. Bobbi is smart and always has been, but Jemma is more than _smart_ ; she’s brilliant and meticulous and organized.

 

For the first time, it occurs to her that her impulse to protect Fitz—to save him and his mum and get him back in school with her—has truly clouded her ability to make decisions in the way that she usually does.

 

“This plan is…really good,” Jemma finally says, choked up slightly. Bobbi tilts her head in confusion.

 

“You don’t sound convinced.”

 

“No it’s not—I just don’t understand how I didn’t see something like this as a possibility before. It’s brilliant. It’s relatively safe, considering, and just makes _sense.”_

 

Bobbi shrugs, somewhat bashfully. “Maybe the stakes are just too high for you right now.”

 

Jemma shakes her head. “I guess so. I’m just a little embarrassed, I think. Here I am, running around shooting people with ICERs and you have a whole big plan that minimizes all of those issues.”

 

Bobbi grimaces. “Look, if it was Hunter’s whole life on the line—I’d probably be losing my shit too.”

 

“I’m—really sorry you found out about him that way,” Jemma says cautiously. Bobbi looks away.

 

“So am I,” she admits. “It’s not something he wanted me to know. At first I was hurt by that, because you knew and I didn’t.”

 

“I only knew because—“

 

Bobbi holds up a hand to cut her off and continues. “But then I did a lot of thinking last night and that’s really his cross to bear. He doesn’t have to share that with me if he doesn’t want to. I really wanted to be the kind of person he might want to share it with. But if I’m not, then I’m just not. There’s nothing more to it.”

 

As if on cue, a loud thunk on the living room window cuts them off. Jemma frowns, thinking perhaps a bird flew into it, but then another thunk sounds. She spies Hunter crouching on the fire escape, staring at Bobbi hopefully.

 

“I should—go in my room,” Jemma suggests. She hops off of the stool but pauses before turning into the hallway to give them some privacy. “Hey, Bobbi?”

 

“Yeah?” Bobbi asks, her eyes glued to her sort-of-boyfriend on the fire escape.

 

“Are we going to be okay?” Jemma asks. “Are you—still upset with me?”

 

Bobbi at least dignifies Jemma with a glance now. “I’m still upset. You’re on thin ice, Simmons, but I think we’ll make it through this.”

 

Jemma smiles in relief. The teasing lilt to Bobbi’s words feel like a balm on burns, and she nods before entering her bedroom. Her bed has never looked so inviting. She strips out of her filthy jeans and collapses on top of her duvet, still wearing Fitz’s flannel.

 

She buries her nose in one of the sleeves and takes several deep breaths with her eyes shut. She’s asleep in moments.

 

***

 

Bobbi slides open the window and stares at him incredulously. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

 

“I’ll sit out here all day,” he threatens. “I need to talk to you.”

 

“Are you still on morphine?” Bobbi practically barks, yanking him inside.

 

“A little,” he shrugs. “But don’t worry, my dad drove me here.”

 

Bobbi blinks. “Your….dad…”

 

“Fitz,” Hunter grins cheekily. She rolls her eyes and practically frog marches him into her bedroom.

 

“Jemma needs to sleep,” she provides as an explanation when he raises his eyebrows.

 

“She was gone when I woke up the last time,” Hunter says. “Took good care of me all night, though. I owe her.”

 

Bobbi shifts uncomfortably, standing awkwardly near the door as he sits on her bed. He stares at her for a long moment.

 

“Is that my t-shirt?”

 

Bobbi crosses her arms defensively across her chest. “No.”

 

“It is,” he marvels. He looks awestruck and quite pleased. She fights off a smile. These past twelve hours have been too much for her, and she’s already handed out forgiveness this morning. She’s determined to have this conversation the right way.

 

“It might be,” she evades. “Hunter, why are you here? You should be at home resting—“

 

“Well, as you learned last night, it’s not like my house is a great place to nap,” he says wryly. She flinches and he sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m—I joke about it. It’s…easier, that way.”

 

“Is it?” Bobbi challenges. “Or does it hurt just the same?”

 

He whistles lowly and leans back on his elbows. As soon as he does, he yelps and grabs at his arm. Bobbi shakes her head and fluffs the pillows at the head of her bed. He watches her curiously and she jerks her head.

 

“Sit,” she demands. He grins and scrambles carefully up to the top of the mattress.

 

“Aw, Bob, you do care.”

 

“You know I do,” she snaps. His deflective humor is doing nothing but agitating her. He has the decency to look ashamed.

 

“I didn’t come here just to piss you off,” he mumbles. She nods and crawls to sit near his legs, facing him.

 

“Then what did you come here for?”

 

“I understand why you’re mad,” he says. She can see that he struggles to maintain eye contact—he fights the urge to look away from her, and she has to at least give him credit for that. “I broke your rules. I broke a promise, really, and I put your best friend in danger while doing it.”

 

“Do you think that’s it?” she asks. It’s not argumentative, just genuinely confused.

 

“Uh, well, yeah.”

 

She scoffs. “You still don’t get it. It’s not just Jemma, Hunter. You could have been killed. You got _hurt_.”

 

“I know I should have told you about my mum.”

 

“No,” she insists. “No, you didn’t have to tell me that. It’s your secret to tell. I just don’t want you to think that I’m mad at you for not telling me, okay? I’m a little disappointed that you trusted Jemma with it and not me.”

 

“You’re too good for my life,” he tries to explain. His voice cracks and she wants to interrupt, but she refrains. It seems like this is something he needs to say. “You always were, and I know our first date was technically just a ruse to get you in on all of this, but everything that happened after—well, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe the _only_ good thing to ever happen to me, aside from meeting the Fitzes, and I didn’t want—I couldn’t have you pitying me and worrying after me and not wanting to leave this fucking place as soon as you can once you graduate.”

 

Bobbi blinks in surprise. “Hunter, stop.”

 

“Stop what?”

 

“Stop breaking up with me,” she says seriously.

 

“I was under the impression you did that last night,” he retorts.

 

“Are you serious?” she laughs. “Hunter, we had a fight. That wasn’t a break up.”

 

He falters. “…really?”

 

“Yes,” she assures him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed. But I’ll let go of it. I’m mad about the robbery and that you got Jemma involved, but I could never be mad at you for what your mother does to you. I could never be mad that you didn’t want to tell me. I understand why you made that decision. It’s not your fault that I’m upset, not when it comes to that, okay?”

 

He leans back in relief, his eyes fluttering shut. She can tell from the haziness that’s been lying at the surface of his brown eyes that he’s still medicated. She’s glad for it; at least he isn’t in pain. That realization as well as his next words break the dam.

 

“I’ve never been told that before,” he says off-handedly, as if it’s no big deal.

 

“What?” she gasps softly.

 

He opens his eyes, frowning with a puzzled expression. “No one’s ever told me that something’s not my fault. That’s all.”

 

“That’s all?” she questions. “ _That’s all?”_

 

He nods wordlessly and she moves to lay down beside him. She double checks before she nestles into him that she’s not on his bad side. As soon as her face touches his chest, she feels him sigh in relief, his muscles relaxing beneath her. She rubs gentle circles on his hip.

 

“I care about you a lot,” she admits hoarsely. “More than I ever wanted to.”

 

Much to her mortification, a tear falls onto the cotton of his shirt. He must have changed at some point. This one is clean and a little tight—probably Fitz’s, she thinks.

 

“But not because you’re a bad person to care about,” she rushes to explain, pushing through the painful lump in her throat. “You aren’t. But thinking of—of what she does to you _hurts._ You don’t deserve it.”

 

One of his hands reaches up, his fingers dancing through her hair. She can spot some of his tattoos out of the corner of her eye. It’s only now that her focus is drawn to the patterns beneath the ink—scars and burns dotting the skin.

 

“You don’t deserve it,” she repeats.

 

He licks his lips and shifts carefully to look her in the face. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, a strangled and desperate sound. She must look as surprised as she feels. “I just—I know I don’t usually ask. I’ve hurt you enough and I don’t want to make it any worse—“

 

She leans forward, kissing him with more tenderness than she ever has before. Her hands come up to rest on his cheeks, thumbs dancing over his cheekbones. When she pulls away, she meets his eyes.

 

Something has changed between them. It sits in the air of her bedroom, but instead of the stifling, awful tension she’d felt last night walking away from him, it’s a comfort. There is something warm and light and reassuring about it.

 

So she reaches up and adjusts the pillows again. “You need more sleep.”

 

He nods tiredly. “I probably do.”

 

“I do too,” she admits. “I was up most of last night. I shouldn’t have left, but I was—I needed to think.”

 

“And what do you think?”

 

“That we’re all lost,” Bobbi admits as she lays down beside him again. She turns over to face him completely. “I think we _all_ have a long way to go. But…I also think we can do it.”

 

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says, voice a murmur as he rubs his face against her silky pillow case like a cat. She smiles.

 

“Just don’t die out there, okay?” she asks imploringly. It’s half-joke and half-request.

 

“I won’t. Only if you promise the same.”

 

“Promise.”

 

***

 

At dusk that night, Jemma drives back out to the warehouse. She’d received a text from Fitz asking her to meet him here—and requested that Bobbi and Hunter join them later to discuss Bobbi’s new plan.

 

Even with the jewelry store money, they have a way’s to go.

 

She changes out of his flannel and into a new pair of jeans and a soft cotton tank top, pinning pieces of her hair back. It’s humid tonight, balmy and warm, and she feels a flutter of nerves in her stomach as she heads out to her car.

 

When she arrives, the warehouse door is wide open, and she can’t help but scoff.

 

“Ugh, Fitz! This place is full of stolen cars, you know.”

 

He grins at her as he turns around. “Yeah, well. If we haven’t been caught by now…”

 

“Don’t get cocky,” she warns him. He just smiles at her, and she has a hard time reconciling this Fitz with the one she’d seen last night when they arrived after the robbery. Or the one who pushed her up against the car and kissed her fiercely…

 

She wrenches her mind from that train of thought and does her best to just focus on him.

 

“You wanted to meet me?”

 

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says, his casual mood slipping into nervousness. “About uh—about last night.”

 

Jemma scratches at her eyebrow, scrunching up her face in a nervous tick that she’s not sure when she developed. “I’ve already done this once today. Might as well go one more round.”

 

He frowns. “What, you’ve done this today? With Lincoln?”

 

“Huh?” she questions obliviously. “No. Bobbi.”

 

“Oh,” he says, huffing out a short laugh. “I meant I wanted to talk to you about what happened between us last night.”

 

“The kissing?” she drawls tiredly. He straightens up, surprised by her bluntness. Her arms cross over her chest and she leans casually against a rusty Ford Mustang. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Fitz, we’ve done that quite a bit lately.”

 

He licks his lips and stares at the ground. “Yeah, I know. That’s the whole thing.”

 

She shuts her eyes and leans her head back, hoping that the frustration and déjà vu of this conversation will somehow leak out of her brain. “Really, Fitz? Again?”

 

“It’s not the same,” he assures her. “It’s not the same thing again, I promise.”

 

Her head comes up again, eyes opening wearily. “Alright.”

 

He nods his head outside into the field to the same little area where they had their bonfire and leads the way into the tall grass. The sun is setting, a pretty twilight, and he takes a seat on the ground with his back to a large rock. She sits on an adjacent stump, cross-legged and open to whatever is about to happen.

 

She’s slowly learning that she has absolutely no control anymore—for this moment, at least, she will surrender that fact to the cosmos and let him say his piece.

 

“I’m scared,” he blurts out. His eyes find the sky, his face turning away from her. She watches him carefully. “I’m really, really fucking scared, Jemma.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“For my mum to die.”

 

His voice cracks and he winces visibly.

 

“Oh, Fitz,” she says softly. She wants to reach out and hold his hand, but she can tell that he wants to get this out. They’ve always been the same in that way. She’d been able to hold herself together when she got the call that her grandmother died, but the moment he put his hand on her shoulder in the lab storage room at the university, she’d broken down completely.

 

“I’ve told you about my dad before, a little bit. Basically he held it together while we were here on green cards. He knew if he stepped out of line, we were all screwed.”

 

He finally turns back to look at her, serious and resolute.

 

“He was working for one of the factories. He didn’t make much but it was enough. As soon as we all got our legitimate citizenship he just—he stopped caring. My mum was working at the school and my dad was just blowing off work, getting wasted.”

 

A muscle in his jaw twitches as he looks away from her again.

 

“One day I came home early from school. It was one of those parent-teacher days or whatever, and he was supposed to be there to meet my teacher. I think I was—thirteen? Fourteen, maybe. But I walked in and I caught him with some woman I’d seen him with down at the bar when my mom sent me to get him for dinner. In our living room, on the couch, our damn family portrait right across from them.”

 

“Fitz—“

 

“I ran outside and I didn’t do anything to stop him. I knew enough from sex ed and the kids at school what he was doing. And I sure as hell knew that husbands weren’t supposed to be doing it with women who weren’t their wives.”

 

He laughs bitterly, shaking his head.

 

“So I told my mum. I couldn’t help it, I loved her and even though I knew it would hurt her, I thought she needed to know. She threw him out that night, calling it quits after months of misery, and then we got the call.”

 

“What call?” Jemma asks softly.

 

“The call from the station,” he answers. “It was Bobbi’s step-dad, actually. They’d nabbed my dad on grand theft auto, public intoxication, and assault with a deadly weapon.”

 

Jemma gasps softly, attempting to cover it up with her hand.

 

“He was sentenced to twelve years in jail, and when I went to visit him the first time he said it was all my fault, because I told my mum about that woman.”

 

Jemma can’t take it anymore. She scrambles into the grass beside him and grasps at his hand. “You have to know it’s not your fault Fitz.”

 

“Now? At twenty-two? Yeah, of course I do. But back then I didn’t. I spent years feeling like I had ruined my entire family, like I had put my dad in prison.”

 

“How awful,” she sympathizes, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. His eyes are directed to her motion, and they lock on to the movement as he continues. He’s warm under her hands and not for the first time, she wants to make the whole world stop for him. She wants to undo the thread of time and run it back through the spool, making him a better life.

 

But she can’t do that, so she continues to listen. For whatever reason, he feels the need to tell her all of this for the first time in their four years of close friendship.

 

“My mum made me keep going back, keep visiting. We would just sit there in stone cold silence until she finally stopped forcing me to go. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in a long time. He got another year added on for a fight in jail and that’s the last I’ve heard of him.”

 

“Fitz, I’m really glad you feel like you can tell me all of this but—what does this have to do with last night?” she asks carefully. “When I got here, you said that’s what you wanted to talk about.”

 

The sky is growing deeper purple, a few buzzing lightning bugs rising into the sky over the tall grass.

 

“I’m just a fucking terrified that I’m ending up just like him,” Fitz says. It’s so quiet she almost misses it. “And if I’m like him, then everything I did—all of the schoolwork, going to college, all of that—it was for nothing. If I hadn’t gone to college my mum wouldn’t have taken out another mortgage. Maybe she would have been able to afford her treatment with her savings—“

 

“Fitz,” she interrupts firm. She lifts his chin until he looks at her. “Don’t do this to yourself. You know that your mum wanted you to go to school. I met her the first day she moved you in, remember?”

 

He smiles crookedly, fondness seeping in through his sadness. “Yeah.”

 

She smiles a little brighter. “Yeah, exactly. And you are _nothing_ like your father. You are loyal and trustworthy and incredibly kind. You would never be doing any of this if desperate times didn’t call for desperate measures. There’s an end goal here, Fitz. It’s different.”

 

“What if it isn’t?”

 

“It _is.”_

 

“What if I lose her, and I lose myself, and I lose _you?”_ he mumbles.

 

“You won’t, Fitz,” she sighs heavily. “I promise. You won’t lose me. I can’t promise that your mum is going to make it. I’m not a doctor. But I can promise to be beside you the whole damn time, no matter what.”

 

He looks at her in wonder, like she’s a harvest moon or a shooting star. Maybe it’s the lightning bugs all around her now, or the deep purple blue haze of the sky behind her.

 

“What?” she asks, embarrassed.

 

“We should be together,” he says firmly. She laughs, bewildered, and he presses on. “I mean it. We can’t waste any more time.”

 

He surges forward and kisses her, nearly knocking her backward into the grass. She kisses him back for a long moment before finally tearing herself away and gently pushing on his chest until he’s separated from her.

 

“Fitz,” she interrupts softly. She watches his chest rise and fall with ragged, desperate breath. Her heart sinks and she knows what she has to do, even when every part of her begs her mind to be quiet. “I know you’re scared right now, and I know you feel like you’re losing everyone you care about. I’m okay with waiting for the right time. If you’re feeling all of this fear right now—it’s not the right time for us, okay?”

 

He shakes his head. “It is. There’s not going to be any other time.”

 

“You’re feeling hopeless,” she says carefully. “And you’re always the hope between the two of us so I can do that for you right now. There will be another time for us, but I don’t think it’s right now.”

 

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you—waiting for me? Or are you going to see other people until it’s the right time?”

 

Jemma considers this for a beat. She doesn’t want to make promises she can’t keep—she’s a human being with wants and needs and these days, he can’t always fulfill those, even as her friend. She doesn’t blame him for that, but she also doesn’t want to say she’ll put her life on the backburner for him only to take it back if she meets someone.

 

This entire process—becoming a criminal to save his mum and his future—has been so incredibly taxing, emotionally and physically. She loves him more than she could ever imagine loving anyone else, but that’s not always enough.

 

Right now, it isn’t.

 

She pauses just long enough for him to assume the worst. “You already are, aren’t you?”

 

She scoffs. “What? No.”

 

“That was a _really_ long pause.”

 

“I just don’t want to promise anything that I might not be able to keep,” she tries to explain. He looks surprised and a little hurt.

 

“Well I can promise that I’ll be waiting for you,” he says, obviously upset.

 

“I’m not asking you to promise that!” she protests. Then it dawns on her. “Fitz, _jealousy_ is no reason to jump into a relationship that _you_ said we couldn’t have.”

 

“I never said—“

 

“Do not,” she cuts him off fiercely. “Do not try to tell me that you didn’t say that. We went on a date, a lovely date, and at the end of it you kissed me and then told me you were dropping out of school and moving back home and that it was a bad idea to try to start something between us with everything going on. And you’ve been the one to say on more than one occasion that nothing can happen between us until this is all sorted out. I have been patient and I have been understanding and I have tried my best but no, Fitz, I won’t promise you that I’ll wait around for you forever.”

 

“Which is why I’m asking you to just do this now!”

 

“Romantic,” she says sarcastically. “Like I said, jealousy isn’t the right reason.”

 

“It’s not that,” he argues. “It isn’t just that.”

 

She smiles sadly and looks up to find Bobbi’s headlights approaching the warehouse. “I really want to believe you. I’m just not there yet.”

 

She leans forward and kisses his cheek, a sting and a salve, and she stands. “We have work to do.”

 

He grabs her wrist as she goes to walk past him. “Jemma. You know that I want this more than anything, right?”

 

“I know,” she replies. “I do too, but I don’t want it like this. I want it to be _normal.”_

 

“What if it never can be?”

 

She just tilts her head and gives him a significant look. His heart skips a nervous, painful beat.

 

“They’re waiting for us, Fitz.”

 

He trails after her, trudging through the grass. The entire conversation had, once again, gotten away from him. All he wants is for _one thing_ to work out. One damn thing doesn’t feel like it’s too much to ask for.

 

Adrenaline courses through him and he has to physically restrain himself from kicking the nearest shitty car that Hunter stole, useless at the chop shop and useless to both of them as a result. Hunter watches him carefully as he walks in, Bobbi flipping over the brown board that holds his tools.

 

“You okay?” Hunter asks quietly.

 

“You’re the one with the bullet wound, I think that’s my line.”

 

“I’m fine,” Hunter says almost dreamily. He watches Bobbi study her own handiwork, butcher paper covered in her neat print lining the backside of the board. “I’m—kind of actually really good.”

 

Fitz follows Hunter’s sight line. Hunter looks positively smitten with her, even more than he had before (which had been far more than Hunter would have ever admitted.) Bobbi turns around, looking at Hunter with a shy smile before squaring her shoulders.

 

“Okay, team. Here’s the deal. We need a long con, something that’s sustainable for more than just the immediate.”

 

Fitz has already heard all of this. She’d gone over it with him the night before while Jemma had been desperately trying to figure out what to do about the bullet hole in Hunter’s arm in the middle of the woods.

 

“So I did a little bit of thinking and I remembered when I was working at that bar—“

 

“The Iliad,” Jemma fills in before Hunter can ask what bar she used to work at. Bobbi smiles gratefully.

 

“Yes, The Iliad. Anyway, this guy came in saying he had our allocation number for Nick Fury Bourbon. I’d never heard of it, but apparently it’s a hot commodity for bars and niche whiskey drinkers. Alcohol collectors love the stuff. It’s not really anything special, but it’s really hard to come by. It’s been aging in barrels in batches for twenty years or whatever, and every year there’s only about 100 to 200 bottles made available to the public.”

 

“So we steal the whiskey,” Hunter tries to jump in. She shoots him a look to quiet him and shakes her head.

 

“Not exactly. It’s not that simple. What we need to do is get inside the operation and slowly start pulling bottles out. They have a storeroom of vintage bottles, too; not every bottle gets given away in allocation.”

 

“So it’s exclusive whiskey,” Hunter says. “But how much does it go for?”

 

“It doesn’t sell in liquor stores,” Bobbi grins. “Bars only, and only bars who get a certain allocation. Some bars get one bottle, others get up to five.”

 

“How do collectors even know about it?”

 

“Black market,” Bobbi chirps. The words are like music to Hunter’s ears and he sits up straighter.

 

“You have my attention.”

 

Bobbi rolls her eyes. “I can tell. Depending on the year and how long it’s been aged, bottles can go for up to $5,000 a bottle.”

 

Hunter whistles, his eyebrows shooting up. “Holy shit.”

 

“Yeah,” Bobbi beams. “So we sneak bottles out, sell them one by one so as not to raise suspicions on the black market—“

 

Jemma laughs lightly and Bobbi tilts her head. “What?”

 

“Sorry. Just—you’re concerned about being suspicious on the black market,” Jemma laughs.

 

Bobbi smiles back. “I know. It’s crazy. But we have to play this smart.”

 

“I was telling Bobbi last night,” Fitz jumps in, ready to get down to business after his emotional conversation with Jemma, “I don’t think I can be the one to go in. I never know when my mum is going to need me.”

 

“I can do it,” Bobbi offers. “I barely need to take any classes this year.”

 

“You shouldn’t be the one,” Hunter argues. “You need to focus on getting out of school.”

 

Bobbi smiles softly, warm affection in her eyes. “So who’s gonna do it? You?”

 

“Yes ma’am,” he says, adopting a perfect American accent. Bobbi barks out a surprised laugh and he grins easily. “I’ve been in the liquor business for years, darlin’.”

 

“That’s—actually not a bad idea,” Jemma says, snapping her fingers excitedly. “Hunter goes in as someone else.”

 

“Skye can make up fake documents,” Fitz suggests. “She’s…done it for us before.”

 

“Are you sure you’re up for it, Hunter? You’ll have to actually work, not just steal,” Bobbi says. She’s only half kidding.

 

“Believe it or not, Barbara, I’ve had a job before,” he huffs, voice slipping back into his usual accent.

 

She holds her hands up defensively. “Hey, I was just asking.”

 

“It was a fair question,” Fitz agrees with a teasing shove. Hunter yelps and Fitz’s eyes widen. “Shit, sorry mate.”

 

“’s fine,” Hunter hisses through his teeth. It’s clearly not fine, but he turns his attention back to the board behind Bobbi. “So when do I start?”

 

“I’ll make you a fake resume,” Jemma offers. “We have to make you the kind of employee they would never turn down.”

 

“Good idea,” Bobbi compliments. “So Jemma will do the resume, we’ll have Skye make up some documents, and hopefully we’ll be able to get you an interview soon.”

 

“I’m ready whenever.”

 

Jemma frowns. “No you aren’t. He needs at least another week.”

 

Bobbi hums in agreement. “Sorry Hunter. Another week of rest for that whole _getting shot_ thing.”

 

He looks a little disappointed but also tickled pink that everyone is so concerned about him. Fitz’s phone rings, disturbing their little meeting. He frowns and hops off of the hood of a car he’d been sitting on.

 

“Hey Mum, everything alright?” he asks as he walks out of the warehouse. The three of them study the board in his absence.

 

“So, does this mean the end of garden variety theft?” Jemma asks hopefully. Bobbi and Hunter share a look and Hunter turns to her with a grimace.

 

“I’m afraid not. But it’ll take some of the pressure off.”

 

“It’s a long game,” Bobbi reminds her. “Quality, not quantity. That kind of thing.”

 

Jemma sighs, laying out on the hood of the old Ford truck she was perched on for their strategy meeting.

 

Her mind whirls around her conversation with Fitz. Had she made a mistake rejecting him? Should she have promised to wait for him?

 

She had hoped this plan might bring a certain level of normal back into their lives. Clearly she had been wrong. It’s a start, but they’re nowhere near normal yet.

 

The picket fences and dates at diners will have to wait. For now, they have work to do.


End file.
